02.10.2025

Neither king nor empress

There is no reason to take sides in what is an unsavoury power struggle between MPs. Meanwhile, Jack Conrad warns of an impending anti-left witch-hunt and calls for the left to unite around programme and principle

Alex Callinicos is “very angry”. Even incandescent. Why? Instead of his normal, mundane, everyday anger being directed at its “proper objects”, such as Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, there is what he calls the “absurd split that has exploded at the top of Your Party”.¹

Readers of this paper will know the story oh so well, not least because of Carla Roberts and her regular updates. Naturally cautious, perhaps vainly hoping that he would be readmitted into the Labour fold, Jeremy Corbyn delayed and delayed again before finally launching what is, for the moment, known as Your Party. Nonetheless, as of now, more than 850,000 have signed up to express an interest.

Already suspended, Zarah Sultana formally resigned from the Labour Party in July 2025, declaring that she would co-found and co-lead Your Party alongside Corbyn - the giveaway presumption being that Your Party would not only have a king, but an empress too. We, therefore, arrived PDQ at a situation eerily reminiscent of the fratricidal conflict between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda. School textbooks call the 1139-53 civil war ‘The Anarchy’ (with a capital ‘T’ and a capital ‘A’). With the constant raiding, looting and general mayhem, England and Normandy were devastated. A sobering lesson for the JCP/YP.

King Jeremy has his allied barons and, with his well-financed Peace and Justice Project, a team of paid and unpaid mercenaries ready to please the patron. Len McClusky, former Unite general secretary, and especially his partner, Karie Murphy, act both as cheerleaders and the power behind the throne. Another former general secretary is Mark Serwotka. There are also the four other founder members of the Independent Alliance of MPs: Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan and Iqbal Mohamed - Corbyn loyalists all.

Empress Zarah is, frankly, far weaker. Unlike Corbyn she is no household name. Nor does she have any other MPs onside. Andrew Feinstein counts as a kind of confederate, so, maybe, does Salma Yaqoob. However, what she can do - and is doing - is exploit rank-and-file frustration with Corbyn’s lethargy, take initiatives and pose left. This has seen her launch her “unauthorised” membership portal, champion anti-Zionism, condemn the IHRA so-called definition of anti-Semitism, echo trans rights exclusionary mantras, take occasional pot shots against landlords and even pepper speeches with half-digested Lenin quotes.

Note, Sultana has been reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office;² Corbyn stubbornly refuses to “openly call himself an anti-Zionist”;³ Adnan Hussain, speaking about trans issues, says: “Muslims tend to be socially conservative”;⁴ and Shockat Adam, Adnan Hussain, Ayoub Khan appear to be small-time landlords.⁵ All weaponised in the dynastic struggle to see which MP will rule.

We should add here, for the sake of clarity, that communists do not reject the concept of leaders and leadership - to do so would be both absurd and self-defeating. No class in history has ever achieved victory without pushing forward capable people. Likewise, in our struggle to supersede capitalism, we need our theoretically trained, programmatically armed, energetic and highly motivated leaders. But those leaders cannot be self-appointed or self-serving Bonapartist demagogues elected by referendum. We champion republican democracy. That means being elected - and recallable - by an appropriate committee: eg, branch, city, regional and national.

Education

Sultana instinctively reaches for identity politics. She cut her teeth on whingy, whiny, easily offended executives of the NUS and Young Labour before pursuing her meteoric parliamentary career. Hence Sultana, somewhat bizarrely, demands “gender balance” (she is the only woman in the Independent Alliance), threatened her own defamation legal action (now withdrawn) and bitterly complains about a “sexist boys club”, because she has effectively been excluded from decision-making (which is almost certainly true). Nevertheless, because of her, surely calculated, left posturing, she does have the enthusiastic backing of the Socialist Workers Party - for now at least.

Comrade Callinicos pleads for reconciliation, when it comes to the king and the empress: “We must … demand the two factions reach a compromise. History will not forgive them if they throw this opportunity away.”⁶ Others have sung the same subordinate tune: eg, Andrew Murray in the Morning Star.⁷

Yet, while there is feigned even-handedness, it is altogether clear where the sympathies of comrade Callinicos lie. Despite this or that minor criticism they lie squarely with Zarah Sultana. He gushes: “Sultana’s vision of a dynamic and democratic left party that fights oppression, not simply an election machine, has captured the imagination of tens of thousands.” Callinicos also heaps fulsome praise on Sultana for her implicit threat to exclude “socially conservative” Muslims, such as Adnan Hussain. In the name of women’s “safe spaces” and opposing the “neoliberal idea of gender ideology”, he dared to state that trans women are “not biologically women”.⁸ Sultana almost instantly hit back saying that “there is no space for transphobia” in Your Party.⁹

A couple of decades ago comrade Callinicos would have condemned such a statement as ‘Islamophobic’, even though it came from a fellow Muslim (see below). Meanwhile, let us outline our approach to the “socially conservative”, Muslim or otherwise. It is education, education, education, not exclusion, exclusion, exclusion.

Education requires patience and above all a striving for unity in action. After all, the class struggle itself is a great teacher. Eg, the everyday ‘homophobia’ that passed with barely a comment in Britain’s coal mining communities was brilliantly challenged with the formation of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. This was, of course, under the inspired leadership of Mark Ashton, in the midst of the 1984-85 Great Strike.¹⁰ Another cultural game changer was Women Against Pit Closures which united the women with their striking fathers, partners and sons against the common enemy: Margeret Thatcher’s Tory government, Ian McGregor and the Coal Broad, the police, the mainstream media and the cringing, cowardly Neil Kinnock.

We should also recognise that ‘transphobia’ stems not only from bigotry: there are real concerns amongst some women. It might too be a good idea to stop medicalising what are political, economic and cultural issues, which need to be approached as such. Eg, labelling next to everything a ‘phobia’ individualises next to everything. Monstering individual transgressors is, for sure, a gift to our enemies.

We must, of course, stick to our socialist principles and resolutely defend trans people against state, media and rightwing attacks and demand all reasonable measures to overcome demonisation, disadvantage and discrimination. We should also insist that MPs follow the instruction of our conferences and elected leadership, when it comes to parliamentary votes. Conscience clauses should be rejected as a matter of principle … and, as a corresponding matter of principle, our MPs and other elected representatives should accept only the average skilled worker’s wage. The rest should be donated to the party.

Selective memory

What of comrade Callinicos? Is he suffering from selective memory syndrome? As a member of the second generation of SWP leaders - others included John Rees, Charlie Kimber, Lindsey German, Martin Smith, Amy Leather and Chris Bambery - he presided over the Respect popular front party alongside George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley, Nick Wrack, Alan Thornet, Salma Yaqoob, the Muslim Association of Britain and various British-Asian businessmen. Even though the SWP had a majority, when it came to conference votes, it was its “socially conservative” allies who set the programmatic limits … the result being that Respect stood on a socially and politically conservative platform in elections.

To keep this so-called “united front between revolutionary socialists and Muslim activists” together, SWP tops ensured that their members were corralled to vote down motions advocating international socialism, republicanism, replacing the standing army with a popular militia, opposition to migration controls, abortion rights, etc. The electorate must not be put off. Such was the Blairite argument of SWP speakers - crucially Comrade No1, John Rees himself, now, of course, the numero uno of Counterfire.¹¹

Just prior to that, before Respect was formally established, Lindsey German, speaking at the SWP’s annual Marxism school, in July 2003, said this: “I’m in favour of defending gay rights, but I am not prepared to have it as a shibboleth”. Her concern was potential Muslim voters. Those who disagreed were, yes, branded ‘Islamophobes’. This was, as we said at the time, the SWP’s “clause 4 moment”.¹²

Did comrade Callinicos raise his voice? Did he express his outrage? Did he rebel? You’ve already guessed the answer: it is thrice no! Instead he singled out the CPGB and the “poisonous” Weekly Worker as the ‘proper object’ of his anger.¹³

When CPGB comrades handed out a leaflet warning against any dropping of gay rights for the sake of electoral expediency, the SWP leadership reacted with fury and our comrades were physically assaulted. The SWP ignored our formal letter of complaint and brushed aside our subsequent protests. As if the SWP would ever contemplate ditching its commitment to gay rights! In Respect, of course, it did just that: LBGT rights were “deliberately omitted” from the May 2005 general election manifesto.¹⁴

When, today, comrade Callinicos self-righteously sides with Sultana and condemns tolerating “socially conservative” individuals, he would, if he were honest, openly admit his shameful role in Respect. Clearly, though, he is not honest. No, he is a hypocrite who knows no shame.

What about Sultana’s “vision of a dynamic and democratic left party” that so impresses comrade Callinicos?¹⁵ Well, although Sultana talks the talk of democracy and membership control, what she means by this is an OMOV Zoomocracy.¹⁶ Largely passive members, sitting at home in front of their PCs, laptops and smartphones, get to vote on selected issues every once in a while. But - and this is the great virtue for the aristocracy of MPs and their hangers-on - branches, conference debates and blocs of leftwing delegates can be safely sidelined or swamped in an avalanche of clicks.

OMOV appears as the epitome of democracy. We emphatically support ‘one member, one vote’ for branch committees, conference delegates, etc. However, there were good reasons why the Blairites introduced OMOV by atomised members in Labour Party elections during the 1990s. It gave Tony Blair and his clique a “vice-like grip” and reduced annual conference to a “rubber stamp”.¹⁷

As we have suggested, it is doubtful that Sultana has the Blairite ascendancy as her model. More likely she takes inspiration from Spain’s Podemos (for a brief moment à la mode on the flotsam-and-jetsam left). As a ‘horizontalist’ organisation, its local circles exercise no effective power; however, all Podemos members get to vote online. The result is, though, thoroughly Blairite. It gave Pablo Iglesias Turrión a “vice-like grip” over an extraordinarily vertical organisation (well, from 2014 till his resignation in 2021). He became second deputy prime minister in 2020 and Podemos served as a left parliamentary prop for the ‘progressive’, pro-monarchy, pro-Nato, pro-capitalist government of Pedro Sánchez.

Meanwhile Sultana appears to have reconciled herself to a lottocracy and sortition. This system of random selection - taking account of gender, region, age, etc - will see 13,000 members arranged in blocs of four, each of which will attend one of the founding conference sessions at Liverpool’s ACC over November 29-30. So if by some fluke you happen to be chosen you will be expected to travel all the way to Liverpool in order to attend conference for a couple of hours. Your role will be raise your hand on cue, clap on cue … and then you are free to do as you want. Good perhaps for the Liverpool tourist industry, but a travesty when it comes to democratic decision making.

As comrade Callinicos rightly observes, this sort of arrangement is surely “designed to keep members passive” and those in control staying in control. Karie Murphy will set the agenda, choose the speakers and steer proceedings (she is officially conference and events planning organiser).

Paradoxically, fearing domination by King Jeremy and his court, Max Shanly drew up detailed plans for a lottocracy at November’s conference.¹⁸ Well, now he has got it and does not like it. But, comrade Shanly, you sold the pass … as we told you, the anti-democratic results were eminently predictable. Then there is Ed Griffiths. Again in the name of democracy - but really wanting to marginalise the organised left - he too advocates sortition and a lottocracy.¹⁹ We are reliably informed that some in RS21’s Marxist Unity Caucus back a lottocracy too. A mistake, to put it mildly.

The same can be said of Roger Hallam, the environmental activist and former political prisoner. Nowadays he operates under the Assemble banner and is committed to a global democratic revolution and shifting power away from parliamentary elections to citizen’s assemblies selected, yes, through sortition. Understandably then, he welcomes, on the one hand, the idea of a lottocracy in the JCP/YP … but, as with comrade Shanly, he recognises how the system is going to be run, manipulated and controlled by Karie Murphy. He is no fool. Comrade Hallam knows perfectly well that, given four blocs of participants over just two days, with no time set aside for preparation, debate, calling experts, etc, the whole thing is going to be a stage-managed rally.

However, speaking on a September 26 panel along with Max Shanly (Democratic Socialists) and Tina Becker (Why Marx?), comrade Hallam showed the severe limits of his politics.²⁰ He dismissed juries as “bourgeois” - in England trial by jury dates back to Anglo-Saxon times and are nowadays widely loathed by judges, rightwing politicians and the mainstream media. Especially when they acquit political, environmental and trade union activists. That is why we communists say: defend and extend jury trials.

Comrade Hallam dismissed elections as “bourgeois” too - yet the working class movement fought for “universal suffrage and annual parliaments” from its very origins: eg, the London Corresponding Society.²¹ Trade unionists, by tradition - that is, before Margret Thatcher’s anti-trade union laws and the imposition of postal ballots - decided whether or not to go on strike at mass meetings by a simple show of hands: ie, an election. The 1871 Paris Commune, soviets in 1905 and 1917 Russia, the Räte in 1918-19 Germany and similar bodies, such as the Councils of Action in Britain’s 1926 General Strike, certainly decided things by way of voting for responsible positions, delegates, amendments, resolutions and points of order.

Comrade Hallam also maintained that “people are fundamentally equal”. True, when it comes to current socio-political conditions we make demands for equal rights: for work or full benefits, to be housed, to be educated, to be looked after in case of illness … and to vote. But people as people are not equal - something fully recognised by the famous communist principle, ‘From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’. People have different abilities and people have different needs. Some are smart and strong, others less smart and less strong. Some have young children to look after, others are childless. Some are old and infirm … yes, we are all different, we are not equal.

Comrade Hallam has, of course, been on a journey from strict Methodism, to eco-activism, to anarcho-revolutionary … so maybe he will eventually arrive at orthodox Marxism. We certainly hope so.

Organised left

While there have been recent proclamations about peace breaking out at the top, King Jeremy has, in fact, continued the dynastic war by registering himself as the leader with the election commission and depriving, at a stroke, Empress Zarah of support that she might have expected from the organised left.²² Members of any other “national party” are now officially barred. In other words local parties which are registered with the electoral commission are welcome to come in, but members of the SWP, SPEW, CPB, CPGB, etc, should keep out.

Tragically, this sets up JCP/YP for the sort of disastrous purge regime which repeatedly ripped through the Labour Party during the 1920s and 30s. Communists were banned and prescribed by rule. The same happened with Arthur’s Scargill Socialist Labour Party in the late 1990s. CPGB comrades were targeted from day one by the Fourth International Supporters Caucus, which acted as Scargill’s enforcers.

A JCP/YP version of Labour’s bans and prescriptions would be a self-inflicted wound. If implemented, it will sow fear and distrust, and deprive branches of many of their best activists and organisers. Driving out so-called ‘enemies within’ will definitely be a huge diversion from fighting the real enemy, which is without: Donald Trump, Nato, Israel’s genocidal regime, Sir Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, etc.

Nationally organised left groups have responded in one of two ways: surrender or resistance.

The Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain looks set to surrender. Though there are more than a few CPBers who have openly signed up for the JCP/YP, general secretary Robert Griffiths insists that the CPB opposes “secretive ‘entryism’ into other parties”. Leave aside Andrew Murray’s entry into the Leader of the Opposition’s Office (Loto) as a Unite-seconded Corbyn advisor, according to comrade Griffiths, ‘entryism’ leads to charges of “dishonesty and bad faith, including from potential allies in our broad movement work”.²³

Not the practice of the ‘official’ CPGB historically, of course, but a CPB attempt to prove its respectability and trustworthiness to the trade union and labour bureaucracy. A grovelling approach which saw comrade Griffiths actually promising Labour’s general secretary, Iain McNicol, that he would expel any CPB member who had joined in order to support Corbyn while he was leader.²⁴

Comrade Griffiths also fears that the views of CPB members will be “mispresented” by the media, anti-communist parties and sects looking to set party members against “Communist Party policy and against one another”. This rings true. Comrade Griffiths dreads polemic and losing control over his membership. However, scraping the bottom of the barrel, he goes on to say that as members of the JCP/YP, “Communists would be obliged to promote policies which could directly contradict communist policies (eg, women’s rights, immigration, federalism, the EU, Nato, China, electoral alliances).”²⁵ Obliged! Utter nonsense! No-one has suggested that the JCP/YP operate the sort of bureaucratic centralist regime practised by the CPB, SWP, SPEW, etc. Clearly he is just looking for excuses to surrender.

Supposedly the matter will be decided “after a full and free debate” at the CPB’s Sheffield congress in mid-November … but the betting must be on the Griffiths line winning the day (along with a not insignificant membership loss subsequently).

Thankfully the SWP is, like ourselves, committed to an altogether different approach: resistance. Reading its Party Notes, we find not only a broadly correct explanation of the Corbyn-Sultana civil war as being rooted in “electoralism and Labourism”: SWP members are also told to “sign up and encourage others to do so”. A convenient weblink is provided.²⁶

The comrades quote the email barring members of “another political party”. But, quite legitimately, they ask: “Who made this decision? Was there any democratic process? Do the members support it?” Instead of surrender Party Notes tells SWP members to join “now” and to “contest” the ban on the organised left. The SWP might be right, who knows? The “clique” which decided on the bar “may well back down”. We shall see.

Either way, on this occasion, three cheers for the SWP. Surrender offers no chance of success. Resistance, at least, offers the chance.

Our approach

We say that there should be elections in JCP/YP from the bottom up. Branches must be autonomous, not mere transmission belts, and therefore free to elect their own committees and delegates to regional and national conferences. Being popular, educated or even a landlord should not bar anyone. Remember Friedrich Engels was a full-blown capitalist! No less to the point, nor should political shade, background or factional loyalty to a pre-existing nationally organised group. Electing someone you trust, someone you agree with, someone you believe will put up a good fight - that should be considered perfectly normal. Not something to be banned and proscribed.

So the right to form, or belong to, a temporary or a permanent faction or platform should be guaranteed in the JCP/YP rules. Moreover, all committees, up to and including the national committee, ought to be elected, accountable and recallable. The same applies to officers, but especially councillors and MPs. They must be our servants, not our masters. They should represent the party, not their atomised constituents.

Along the same lines, whoever the national committee elects as ‘party leader’ should have no more than a symbolic, nominal role, so as to formally comply with the requirements of electoral law. The unedifying ‘who will be the leader’ dispute between Corbyn and Sultana - both career politicians - testifies to an elitist mindset that ought to be discarded once and for all. No king! No empress!

Nor should we wait till November and the formal Liverpool launch and a stage-managed, hybrid rally/conference. At a local level comrades have rightly formed branches. However, things need not stop there. Form regional committees, form a national committee. Choose election candidates. Establish online and print publications. Make Your Party, our party!

Politics vital

While organisational structures are important, politics are vital.

We communists agree with, and will seek to work closely with, those who want a complete break with Labourism, broad-frontism and all varieties of reformism. Historically, not only has Labourism predictably failed to produce socialism: halfway houses such as Die Linke, Podemos, Syriza and Respect have proved next to useless too. The same has to be said of Corbynism and Corbyn’s capitulationist leadership of the Labour Party between 2015 and 2020.

Given escalating tariff wars, the climate crisis, the bloodbath in Ukraine, the Gaza genocide and the danger of the US-China conflict culminating in a generalised nuclear exchange, humanity faces a stark choice: barbarism or socialism. Harking back to the “mass appeal and bold policy” of Corbyn’s For the many, not the few, as Zarah Sultana does,²⁷ simply will not do. Indeed it screams of a total failure of the imagination. Programmatically, For the many did not even pass muster as reformist. It was, at best, sub-reformist: a hopeless promise of a nicer, a kinder, a fairer capitalism. Such are the delusions brought about by capitalist realism.

We openly seek to transform the JCP/YP into a Communist Party. Fundamentally that means equipping the JCP/YP with a Marxist minimum-maximum programme. The minimum programme is the maximum we can achieve under capitalist conditions and the minimum we require if the JCP is to enter or form a government: eg, abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords, establish a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales, support Irish unity, replace the standing army with a popular militia, oppose all imperialist wars, alliances and occupations, proportional representation, go beyond carbon neutral, free movement of labour, work at full trade union rates of pay, abolish the anti-trade union laws, healthcare for all, genuine equality for women, end discrimination against sexual minorities. With state power (albeit in the form of a semi-state) secured, the maximum programme of transitioning to full communism and the principle of ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’ begins. Something which, of course, has to be international in scope. There can be no local or national socialism.²⁸

Towards that end we emailed RS21’s Marxist Unity Caucus seeking talks about cooperation and coordination. Unfortunately the comrades, under the name of one Callum F, say that, while they “discussed” our suggestion, they apparently “don’t currently have the capacity to have joint meetings”.²⁹ Obvious stuff and nonsense. The Marxist ‘Unity’ Caucus clearly prefers its centrist unity with those “wonderful” RS21 social-imperialists in and around the pro-Nato Ukraine Solidarity Campaign. That is their choice … but a choice which we would urge comrades to openly rebel against and overturn.

We need to unite … and fight!

1. A Callinicos Socialist Worker September 24 2025.↩︎

2. The ICO has the power to impose fines of up to £17.5 million - icosearch.ico.org.uk/s/search.html?collection=ico-meta&profile=_default&query=fines. Not that Sultana faces anything like that, of course, However, it should be added that complainants do have the right to withdraw their complaint. Presumably this has happened in Sultana’s case.↩︎

3. J Conrad ‘Say it loud, say it proud’ Weekly Worker September 4 2025 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1551/say-it-loud-say-it-proud).↩︎

4. x.com/AdnanHussainMP/status/1949926798411616689 - July 28 2025.↩︎

5. www.facebook.com/groups/1785977331719679/posts/4144282665889122.↩︎

6. A Callinicos Socialist Worker September 24 2025.↩︎

7. Murray writes that the “apparent implosion of Your Party is a mortifying moment for the left in Britain” and quips: “Never have the hopes of so many been dashed by so few” (‘Your Party, their crisis, our hopes dashed?’ Morning Star September 20 2025).↩︎

8. After quoting a social media user who said Your Party should not “parrot the same neoliberal idea of gender ideology”, Hussain added: “I agree. Women’s rights and safe spaces should not be encroached upon. Safe third spaces should be an alternative option” (Pink News September 9 2025).↩︎

9. Pink News September 9 2025.↩︎

10. For our obituary of comrade Ashton, see M Fischer ‘Good man fallen amongst Euros’ Weekly Worker September 25 2014 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1027/a-good-man-fallen-amongst-euros). Incidentally this is a reprint from The Leninist, and it should also be added that we had real hopes of winning comrade Ashton to our ranks.↩︎

11. See ‘Rees lays it on the line’ Weekly Worker July 9 2003 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/488/marxism-2003-rees-lays-it-on-the-line); ‘No respect for principles’ Weekly Worker February 19 2004 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/516/no-respect-for-principles); ‘The modern Janus’ Weekly Worker November 17 2005 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/601/the-modern-janus).↩︎

12. J Conrad ‘No compromise on sexism and homophobia’ Weekly Worker July 10 2003 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/488/no-compromise-on-sexism-and-homophobia).↩︎

13. J Conrad ‘Respect and opportunism’ Weekly Worker January 22 2004 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/512/respect-and-opportunism).↩︎

14. P Manson ‘Gay rights “shibboleth”’ Weekly Worker November 24 2005 (weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/602/gay-rights-shibboleth).↩︎

15. My emphasis - A Callinicos Socialist Worker September 24 2025.↩︎

16. Novara Media July 28 2025.↩︎

17. A Seldon and D Kavanagh (eds) The Blair effect 2001-5 Cambridge 2005, p115.↩︎

18. medium.com/@maxshanly/born-for-life-or-marked-for-death-a12d87220e42.↩︎

19. x.com/EdmundGriffiths/status/1956426422509088993.↩︎

20. bit.ly/YPLaunchConference.↩︎

21. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Corresponding_Society#cite_note-58. Note, when the LCS was declared illegal by the Pitt government, Thomas Hardy, Horne Tooke and other leaders were put on trial for treason. A London jury acquitted them (see AL Morton A people’s history of England London 1974, pp348-49).↩︎

22. Election Commission registration for Your Party is dated September 30 2025. Jeremy Cobyn is listed as leader, Adnan Hussain, nominating officer and Marion Roberts treasurer - see search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Registrations/PP18172.↩︎

23. ‘Interview with Rob Griffiths’ Unity September 2025, p11.↩︎

24. This is what he wrote to witch-finder general Iain McNicol: “Should you or your staff have any evidence that Communist Party members have joined the Labour Party without renouncing their CP membership, or engaged in any similar subterfuge, please inform me, so that action can be taken against them for bringing our party into disrepute” … Griffiths signed it with “comradely regards” (21centurymanifesto.wordpress.com/2016/07/12/communist-infiltration-of-labour).↩︎

25. My emphasis - ‘Interview with Rob Griffiths’ Unity September 2025, p11.↩︎

26. Party Notes September 29 2025.↩︎

27. Sidecar interview, August 17 2025.↩︎

28. See CPGB Draft programme London 2025.↩︎

29. Original CPGB email, September 1 2025; MAC executive committee reply, September 25 2025.↩︎