Mike Hicks

Who is Mike Hicks?

Mike Hicks is a British former politician, former executive member of printers’ union SOGAT, and former general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain.

Hicks joined the Young Communist League in 1953 and later the Communist Party of Great Britain. He worked as a printer and was a member of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades. A full-time branch official for the union in 1986, Hicks was arrested and convicted of actual bodily harm during the Wapping dispute. His conviction and sentencing - to 12 months in prison - were controversial, with the national executive committee of the Labour Party voting unanimously to call for his release.

Hicks was expelled from the CPGB in 1985 "for allowing Rule 3 to be applied" as the chair of the London District Congress, i.e. continuing with the congress proceedings in defiance of a demand from CPGB General Secretary Gordon McLennan to close it down. Hicks subsequently joined the Communist Campaign Group, mainly composed of those expelled from the CPGB for their opposition to revisionism and, in 1988, was a founding member of the CPB.