The Working People's Party of England (WPPE) was a Marxist-Leninist

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

History

Its origins lay in the break-up of the Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity. Of those who had not joined the

Action Centre for Marxist-Leninist Unity __NOTOC__ The Communist League of Great Britain was an anti-revisionist group in the United Kingdom. It origins were in the Communist Party of Great Britain, where a faction formed around Bill Bland. Initially Maoist, it joined the majority o ...

, a group in

Islington Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...

founded the "Islington Workers' Committee", which in 1966 joined with a group based in South London to become the "London Workers' Committee". They published monthly the ''London Workers' Broadsheet''. The group was based in Earlsfield, and provided office services to several Black Power and Liberation movements - especially those with sympathies for China. These included: UCPA, Black Panthers, Black Eagles, Frelimo, ZANU, PAC, Portuguese and Palestinian groups. Relationships were mostly friendly with the group based around "The Irish Communist", and the WPS. A loose federation of the LWC with some of these groups took the Campaign against Racial Discrimination" back from the CPGB and its allies in 1967. Another loose "Maoist Black Power Alliance" successfully campaigned against Labour's "In Place of Strife" and called for a boycott of the new GLC elections in Wandsworth where Labour's safe majority vote vanished.The WPPE also organised Bengali self-defence groups in Tower Hamlets. Friendly relationships were established with the Chinese Legation in London and with the Albanian embassy in Paris, and a few members of the WPPE became members of the Afro-Asian Journalists' Association. In May 1968, the LWC formed the "Working People's Party of England".John Moorhouse, ''A Historical Glossary of British Marxism'' (Pauper's Press, 1987) Fraternal delegates attended from various Liberation movements, including ZANU. The group had five main principles: *Serving the people *Uniting all who can be united against the main enemy *Active members only *Maximum initiative for members *All officials subject to immediate

recall Recall may refer to: * Recall (baseball), a baseball term * Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop * Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure * ReCALL (journal), ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted langua ...

by members The party was led by a team with a Chairman

Alexander Tudor-Hart Alexander Ethan Tudor-Hart (born Hart; 3 September 1901 – February 1992) was a British medical doctor in South Wales who was active in the Communist Party of Great Britain. He was the great grandson of American merchant Frederic Tudor and fathe ...

, who was a prominent if difficult former-CPGB doctor in Tooting, a Secretary Paul Noone, a prominent member of the small Medical Practitioners Union, based in Islington, who was replaced by a South London power station worker, a Guianan Jonny James as Foreign Relations Secretary with a young Deputy Secretary from South London who managed direct relationships with the Legation and largely edited the foreign news content of the newspaper. The WPPE split in 1969, when the old leadership disapproved of the (white) wife of one member forming a new relationship with another (Jamaican) member without acrimony. South London, Bristol, Birmingham, Dagenham and Oxford branches left to form the "Serve the People" Group and paper, and took with them the close relationship with the Chinese Legation. The rump of the WPPE split again in 1972 when a section of membership left with Tudor-Hart to form the Committee for a Socialist Programme. According to Barbaris et al., the English People's Liberation Army may also have originated in the WPPE. In 1975, the party began publishing ''Workers' Newsletter'', and in 1980 it renamed itself the Workers' Newsletter Group. In 1985, it again changed its name, to the Workers' Association (not to be confused with the group linked to the

British and Irish Communist Organisation The British and Irish Communist Organisation (B&ICO) was a small group based in London, Belfast, Cork, and Dublin. Its leader was Brendan Clifford. The group produced a number of pamphlets and regular publications, including ''The Irish Commu ...

), but it appears to have disbanded the following year.

References

*Peter Barberis, John McHugh and Mike Tyldesley, ''Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations'', A&C Black, 2000 *

David Widgery David Widgery (27 April 1947 – 26 October 1992) was a British Marxist writer, journalist, polemicist, physician, and activist. Biography Widgery was born in Barnet and grew up in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He contracted polio as a child and ...

''The Left in Britain 1956-1968'', Peregrine, 1976 *Peter Shipley, ''Revolutionaries in Modern Britain'', Bodley Head, 1976 {{DEFAULTSORT:Working People's Party Of England Defunct communist parties in England Political parties established in 1968 Maoist organisations in the United Kingdom 1968 establishments in England