‘Preparing for Power’ 🔖 The Revolutionary Communist Party And Its Curious Afterlives, 1976-2020

Christopher Owens 🔖 I can already hear the knives being sharpened. But I get it.

At the 2021 Historical Materialism conference, Evan Smith offered up a summation of why the party lives rent free in the minds of so many:

Although it remained a tiny group during the 1980s, the Revolutionary Communist Party has become infamous for the number of ventures that grew out of the far-left group and the prominent role that many of the party’s former leading members occupy in the British media and political landscape nowadays. The RCP formally dissolved in 1996, but became infamous after its journal, Living Marxism, was sued for libel by ITN . . . After losing the case . . . the magazine’s former editors, alongside other leading RCP members, formed the website, Spiked Online. In the last twenty years, Spiked has become an increasingly vocal and visible actor in Britain’s culture wars, combining libertarianism and right-wing populism with a penchant for contrarianism. A number of its editorial team and contributors have made headway in the mainstream media, such as Frank Furedi, Joanna Williams, Mick Hume, Brendan O’Neill and Tom Slater. At the same time, Claire Fox was an MEP for the Brexit Party (and now a Baroness in the House of Lords) and Munira Mirza is a chief political advisor for Boris Johnson.

Quite the trajectory, I’m sure you’ll agree. Up there with BICO going from defending nationalists in August 1969 to collaborating with Ulster Unionists or the Workers Party effectively disowning republicanism, some would argue.

So this book from Jack Hepworth (who has written extensively about the conflict in the North) ought to help outsiders see how the party functioned, how it came to take positions that are still controversial in left leaning circles today and the political journeys that certain members have taken since the party’s dissolution. And while it certainly does, it also teases other intriguing lines of enquiry that it fails to deliver on.

Telling the story of how three members of the Revolutionary Communist Group split to form their own organisation, Hepworth does a solid job at narrating the various twists and turns as well as discussing the party’s pariah status among left wing activists in a time where it was felt that radical change was in the air.

One position that remains controversial among right wingers is the party’s unconditional support of “…the right of the Irish people to carry out their struggle for national liberation in whatever way they choose”. Here, former members argue (albeit unconvincingly at times) that it had less to do with supporting Irish republicanism and more to with opposition to British imperialism and thus anyone striking a blow against such tyranny was worthy of support. As one ex-cadre tells Hepworth:

The reason why…Ireland and racism were so important is…they were issues where the establishment could get people to rally around the flag by being British. If you supported the actions of the British state in Ireland, how are you ever going to be capable of fighting for your independent interests within Britain?

This position has often been wielded as a stick to beat the likes of Claire Fox with, especially when Boris Johnson elevated her to the House of Lords to represent Warrington. In some ways, it’s possible to view this position as being akin to those Saturday night republicans who viewed the PIRA, INLA and IPLO as being exactly the same and therefore were all worthy of support. At the same time, the failure for right wingers to understand nationalist support for the republican movement means that such positions can be easily obfuscated to create political drama.

Other controversies, such as demanding the miners’ ballot for strike action during the Second English Civil War and suggesting that straights were less likely to catch AIDS are depicted as having roots in the party’s distrust of trade unions (which members felt was compromised and more attuned to capitalism as opposed to workers interests) and the state. While making sense from an ideological perspective, it put them at odds with every other left-wing movement and combined with the intense reading and debates, imbued within cadres a sense of superiority.

Former RCP member Chris Gilligan has criticised Hepworth for failing to wrestle with larger questions regarding shifting ideologies, the challenges faced by revolutionaries in periods where revolutionary zeal is at an all time low and not disclosing his own links to the party via a relative. All valid criticisms and worthy of a follow up book in its own right. Personally, I was disappointed with the segment covering the LM vs ITN libel trial. Although Hepworth reels off what happened fairly accurately and lists the various detractors who accused LM of genocide denial, it never takes a stand on the case, choosing to highlight how it led to the Academy of Ideas.

For my money, this was a case where everyone involved was an arsehole: LM for effectively claiming that ITN had faked footage of the Trnopolje camp, and major news network ITN for deciding to crush a small magazine via libel.

Closing with the advent of Brexit (seen as the first genuine chance for political upheaval in three decades) and the prominence of former RCP’ers in the media landscape, the reader is left to marvel at how the revolution has gone. Here, Hepworth argues that the shift from revolutionary to libertarianism is in keeping with the beginnings of the party because of the belief in humanity and the belief that freeing people will lead to revolution. Thus, they cannot be right wing as right wing libertarians believe in being left alone.

While undoubtedly true, the trajectory is presented in rather flimsy terms.

There’s an awful lot for a curious newbie to sink their teeth into and it certainly points out that the ex-RCP circle is nowhere near as harmonious as some conspiracy theorists like to make out. But those who have been in left leaning circles for a number of years might be disappointed.

Jack Hepworth, 2025, ‘Preparing for Power’: The Revolutionary Communist Party and its Curious Afterlives, 1976-2020. Bloomsbury Academic Press. ISBN-13: 978-1350242401

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.