He drifted away from the CPGB, joining the Labour Party, and began devoting much of his time to the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Draughtsmen (AESD).
He won a scholarship to the London School of Economics, where he completed a one-year course in trade unionism, and also began writing for Tribune, the left-wing Labour-supporting newspaper.
[2] In 1951, Dix met Jock Haston, a formerly prominent Trotskyist, and through him, he became interested in the work of Max Shachtman and his Third Camp theory.
[2] In 1959, Dix left Socialist Review Group after Cliff won a majority for a position arguing that the Labour Party did not have revolutionary potential.
With this backing, and that of Alan Fisher, who succeeded Hill, Dix was able to create a shop steward system in the union, and developing a novel strategy of rolling industrial action.
Within the party, he campaigned in support of the UK miners' strike, but he soon became disillusioned with Plaid, and instead focused his time on writing on the early history of NUPE.