New Communist Party of Britain - The New Communist Party

The New Communist Party

Sid French became the first General Secretary of the NCP and Surrey became its strongest area. The first national chairman was Joe Parker, a full-time official in the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths (NUSMWC) until he retired in 1982. Joe Parker stepped down as Party Chairman soon after but remained an active NCP member until his death in 2004.

French died in 1979 and was succeeded by Eric Trevett. Trevett retired from full-time Party work in 1995 but remains on the Politburo of the Central Committee of the NCP as Party President, a post created in that year.

Like the rest of the British communist movement the NCP from the beginning had to deal with what they saw as ultra-leftism and right-wing deviation. All were defeated at congresses over the years and many were expelled for factionalism. In the early 1980s an extreme pro-Soviet faction called "Proletarian" was expelled. In the early 1990s another small group was expelled which later formed the Communist Action Group and "Open Polemic".

The party's 'Vote Labour Everywhere' strategy was changed in 2000 to support Ken Livingstone for London Mayor and this ultimately led to the biggest purge in the party's history. A vote at the central committee with a one-vote majority led to nine expulsions from the party of those opposed to the Livingstone decision for factionalism, and some subsequent resignations, including nine members of the central committee. The North West District was dissolved and altogether around 25 members were either expelled for factionalism or resigned from the party.

One of the NCP's most famous members was the communist historian Ernie Trory (1913–2000) who founded the Crabtree Press whose imprint published his political and historical writings. Three major volumes, Between the Wars, Imperialist War and War of Liberation, all sub-titled Recollections of a Communist Organiser, cover unfolding political events from the Depression to the end of the Second World War.

The General Secretary is Andy Brooks, a founder member of the NCP and a member of the Central Committee since 1979. He had previously been international secretary, editor of the New Worker and deputy general secretary.

The NCP has never stood candidates in general or local elections and calls for support for the Labour candidates. This policy was amended in 2000 to permit support for independent Labour candidates with mass support and the NCP backed Ken Livingstone's successful bid for the London Mayorship.

The NCP is an affiliate of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), a grass-roots membership organisation with around a thousand individual members and affiliates that was established in 2004. Five left Labour MPs are members of the LRC and the chair is John McDonnell MP. The aim of the LRC is to set up socialist groups at every level of the Labour Party to confront "New Labour", oppose the war in Iraq, and resist privatisation and job cuts.

The NCP is also a supporter of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, a rank and file union committee supported by a number of left-leaning trade union leaders.

The NCP is opposed to the European Union and the Treaty of Rome and calls on its supporters to boycott the European elections.

The organisational structure of the NCP consists of Fractions, Cells, District Committees, Central Committee, and Political Bureau (Politburo). The highest body of the party is the National Congress, which determines policy and elects the Central Committee.

It produces a weekly newspaper called The New Worker. Content is written either internally, or comes from other sources, particularly organs of fraternal parties. It no longer has a theoretical journal, having ended publication of the New Communist Review in the mid-1990s following the death of its editor George Woolley. In the 1980s and early 1990s the NCP also published an Industrial Bulletin, Irish Bulletin and Economic Bulletin. It produces Internal Bulletin for members and supporters, as well as various pamphlets on different subjects.