Founded 1980s Political position Far-left | Headquarters London International affiliation None | |
The Revolutionary Democratic Group (RDG) was a socialist organisation in the United Kingdom. They were founded in the early 1980s as a split from London and Scottish branches of the Socialist Workers Party, of which, for many years, they considered themselves an "external faction".
The ideological centre of the RDG was an explicit commitment to republicanism. The RDG believed that the far-left concentrates excessively on economic struggles without a clear focus on the need for democracy. The organisation developed the concept of the social monarchy to explain the nature of the British state and sought to demonstrate links between the existence of the monarchy and the continuation of capitalism.
The RDG consistently sought alliances with other socialist groups, with the aim of forming a larger, democratic socialist party. For example, they began working with the Socialist Federation in 1984. For the 1987 general election the RDG joined the Red Front, an electoral alliance spearheaded by the Revolutionary Communist Party. In 1988, they sought fusion talks with Red Action. In the late 1990s they joined Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party, officially dissolving their organisation and becoming the Republican Group. They left, regained the RDG name and soon after joined the Socialist Alliance. They had patchy relations with the Communist Party of Great Britain (PCC) and occasionally had articles carried in the Weekly Worker. The RDG were also active within the United Socialist Party political initiative started by former Liverpool Dockers to build a new workers' party. The RDG briefly sold the Alliance for Workers' Liberty's newspaper Solidarity and occasionally produced one-off editions of its newspaper, Republican Worker, targeted at particular events, such as conferences or demonstrations.
With no website, publication or official activity, the group appears to be moribund. Former leader Steve Freeman has since been involved with the Republican Communist Network, Left Unity and the Republican Socialist Alliance. Freeman stood for parliament in Bermondsey in 2010 as an Independent and in 2015 as the "Republican Socialist Party".