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Red Front (UK)

socialist electoral coalition which stood candidates in the 1987 UK general election

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ7304171
Source-derived summary

Red Front was a socialist electoral coalition in the United Kingdom which stood fourteen candidates in the 1987 general election.

Its main component was the Revolutionary Communist Party of Frank Furedi, while it also attracted the support of the tiny Revolutionary Democratic Group, Red Action and a few independents. The RCP was hugely optimistic about its potential and spoke of it in time replacing the Labour Party as the main left wing force in British politics. However, Red Front candidates shared only 3,177 votes in total and as a result it was abandoned shortly after the election.

Election results

General election 11 June 1987

Bibliography

Revolutionary Communist Party (1 February 1987). The Red Front: A Platform for Working Class Unity. London: Junius Publications. ISBN 978-0948392061.

Smith, Evan (21 November 2022). "A Platform for Working Class Unity?

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Red Front (UK)” as socialist electoral coalition which stood candidates in the 1987 UK general election. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Front, socialist and electoral.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1987, 2022—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1987. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Front, socialist and electoral providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Red Front (UK)”, the useful work is to connect “socialist electoral coalition which stood candidates in the 1987 UK general election” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7304171. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1987 and 2022.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Red Front (UK) primary sources, Red Front (UK) archive and Front research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Red Front (UK)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.