In 20 years the branch was only ever allowed five minutes of open discussion time at a Party congress, and this was scheduled on a Saturday just after the lunch break when the hall was almost deserted as delegates lingered in the pub.
After being expelled from the party, the members of the Appeal Group aimed to recruit supporters from inside and outside the CPGB to fight on an anti-revisionist platform.
They met up to four times a week in a council flat overlooking Charlton Athletic football ground for several years.
Jackson was a self-taught engineer with a deep distrust of middle-class intellectuals, whom he blamed for the revisionism of the old party.
Jackson’s increasing paranoia about infiltration and his distrust of newcomers also drove away many potential supporters, and the group dwindled and faded away.