The RCPB-ML has its origins in the Sussex University-based English Student Movement, part of the Hardial Bains-inspired tendency known as the Internationalists; and it formed following their Necessity For Change conference in 1967. Renamed the English Communist Movement in 1970, the group founded the Communist Party of England in March 1972. Like other Bains-inspired parties, the CPE-ML took the Chinese side in the Sino-Soviet split, thus being endorsed by Albania, allied at the time with Maoist China and opposing both the capitalist West and the Soviet bloc in accordance with the Three Worlds Theory promoted by Beijing. However, during the deterioration in Sino-Albanian relations the CPE-ML increasingly sided with Enver Hoxha, developed party to party relations with the Party of Labour of Albania and renounced China as revisionist. The CPE-ML made headlines during its first two years. In May 1973, members of affiliated group, the Birmingham Student Movement, instigated a widely reported physical attack on Hans Eysenck at the London School of Economics, though Eysenck declined to press charges. In January 1974, four members of the party were found guilty of possession of petrol bombs and assaulting police. At least one member had received a five year sentence for malicious wounding and assault the previous year. In 1973 the party put forward two candidates in parliamentary by-elections and in 1974 stood for six seats in the February general election and eight in the October general election. Their highest recorded vote was 612 in Portsmouth South during the second 1974 general election. In 1974, the CPE-ML lost around a tenth of its membership following the expulsion of Aravindan Balakrishnan and an associated group accused of "conspiratorial and splittist activities and social fascist slanders against the Party and the proletarian movement". The group became the Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought. The party had links with the progressive music milieu in the 1970s, with avant-garde composers such as Cornelius Cardew and Michael Chant being leading members.
RCPB-ML (1979–present)
The CPE-ML was renamed the RCPB-ML in 1979. It is closely related to the Communist Party of Canada and has good relations with the New Communist Party of Britain. It produces an internet newspaper called Workers' Daily Internet Edition and has a bookshop in south London named John Buckle Books. It has been active in promoting solidarity with North Korea. In 2004, the party declared electoral support for the Respect Coalition, but it now calls for an end to the system that brings parties to power and calls on workers' and peoples' collectives to intervene directly in the political process. The party has a system of collective leadership and its General Secretary is Michael Chant. The party's logo is a black hammer and sickle within a yellow star on a red background. Cornelius Cardew died in 1981, John Buckle in 1983 and Hardial Bains in 1997. RCPB-ML official Roger Nettleship has stood for House of Commons seats such as Jarrow in 2005 and South Shieldsin 2001 and 2010. The party supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum.
