Working People's Party of England
The Working People's Party of England (WPPE) was a
History
Its origins lay in the break-up of the
In May 1968, the LWC formed the "Working People's Party of England".[1] 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 by members
The party was led by a team with a Chairman
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 ), but it appears to have disbanded the following year.
References
- ISBN 0-946650-06-3
- Peter Barberis, John McHugh and Mike Tyldesley, Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations, A&C Black, 2000
- David Widgery The Left in Britain 1956-1968, Peregrine, 1976
- Peter Shipley, Revolutionaries in Modern Britain, Bodley Head, 1976