Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist)
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The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist), often abbreviated as CPB-ML, is a British
Marxist–Leninist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...
political party. It originated in 1968 as an
anti-revisionist Anti-revisionism is a position within Marxism–Leninism which emerged in the 1950s in opposition to the reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Where Khrushchev pursued an interpretation that differed from his predecessor Joseph Stalin, ...
split from the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
and was chaired by Reg Birch until 1985. The official programme of the party since 1972 has been ''The British Working Class and its Party''. The publication of the CPB-ML was originally known as ''The Worker'', but is today called ''Workers''.


History

The party was formed in 1968 by Reg Birch as a Maoist,
anti-revisionist Anti-revisionism is a position within Marxism–Leninism which emerged in the 1950s in opposition to the reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Where Khrushchev pursued an interpretation that differed from his predecessor Joseph Stalin, ...
breakaway from the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
, siding with the Communist Party of China in the Sino-Soviet split. From 1979 onwards the CPB-ML sided with
Enver Hoxha Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...
in the Sino-Albanian split. A small number of members split from the party in 1975, forming the Nottingham Communist Group. In 1976, three branches of the CPB-ML split and formed the Communist Workers Movement, initially under the leadership of Ian Williams. This group later joined the Revolutionary Communist League of Britain. In the 1980s, the CPB-ML came to support the Soviet Union again for a period, before dropping this line over
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
's reforms. More recently, the CPB-ML has developed a national line for Britain: "Rebuild Britain"; the party is strongly opposed to the European Union. The party published ''The Worker'' from 1969 until 2000, when it became ''Workers''. Party members focus on work in the labour movement.


Notable members

Notable early members of the CPB(M-L) included writer William Ash, journalists and academics Roy Greenslade and Steve Hewlett, journalist and speechwriter Ian Williams and comedian and author Alexei Sayle.


Positions


EU and Brexit

During the
British EU referendum The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...
of 2016, a number of parties on the far-left supported "Lexit" (arguing for Brexit, Britain leaving the European Union, from a left-perspective). The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist) was one such party. They opted not to join the ''
No2EU — Yes to Democracy No2EU is a left-wing Eurosceptic electoral alliance in the United Kingdom. It was first founded in 2009 when it campaigned under the campaign slogan ''No2EU — Yes to Democracy''; it was led by Bob Crow and backed by the National Union of Rai ...
'' campaign (dominated by the Communist Party of Britain and Trotskyist Socialist Party), but instead backed the ''
Grassroots Out Grassroots Out (GO) was an organisation funded by Arron Banks that campaigned in favour of EU withdrawal in the 2016 referendum on EU membership in the United Kingdom. The organisation was formed in January 2016, as a result of infighting bet ...
'' campaign. This was supported by a broad array of British political figures, from Nigel Farage of UKIP to Kate Hoey of
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
and
George Galloway George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, broadcaster, and writer who is currently leader of the Workers Party of Britain, serving since 2019. Between 1987 and 2010, and then between 2012 and 2015, Galloway was a Member o ...
of the Respect Party. Following the referendum, on 29th March 2017 the Prime Minister Theresa May invoked
Article 50 Withdrawal from the European Union is the legal and political process whereby an EU member state ceases to be a member of the Union. Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union ( TEU) states that "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from t ...
. The Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist) promptly issued a statement which described those who opposed the triggering of Article 50 after the British people voted in favour of Brexit as " enemies of the people". The statement also called for "taking control" of "our economy, our laws, our borders".


Immigration

The party is notable for its opposition to unskilled and low-skilled immigration. In a statement from 2005 in their publication ''Workers'', the party stated that it regards the recent mass immigration from Eastern Europe into Britain as a deliberate plan by the capitalist ruling class to use "cheap labour" to "undermine the wages and conditions of British workers." It also stressed concerns in the same article that this recent mass immigration was having the effect of impacting national infrastructure; schools, hospitals and transport; by overloading them, to the detriment of the indigenous working-class.


NATO

The party calls for the UK's
withdrawal from NATO Withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the legal and political process whereby a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation withdraws from the North Atlantic Treaty, and thus the country in question ceases to be a ...
.


See also

* Committee to Defeat Revisionism, for Communist Unity — an earlier CPGB Maoist splinter group.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Communist Party Of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) Communist parties in the United Kingdom Communist Party of Great Britain breakaway groups Eurosceptic parties in the United Kingdom Political parties established in 1968 1968 establishments in the United Kingdom Anti-immigration politics in the United Kingdom