Patrick and others were simply carrying on a popular tradition which had been developed through the politics of the Socialist League and the struggles of syndicalism in Britain prior to the inception of the CPGB.
With the setting up of the APCF, the authorities began to investigate the group, and Aldred, Patrick, Douglas McLeish and Andrew Fleming were eventually arrested and charged with sedition within the first year of its inception.
The charges relate to anti-parliamentary activity, the promotion of the Sinn Féin electoral tactic and undermining of parliament.
In 1934, along with Aldred, Patrick set up the United Socialist Movement (USM), an anarcho-communist organisation which helped publish a journal called The Word.
[1] Both Ethel MacDonald and Patrick went to Spain at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War as respective representatives of their groups.