Picture a room in a church hall or community centre in late September. The evenings are starting to chill but the heating isn’t on yet. There are about twenty five people and you recognise seven of them. Three are local SWP members who have been active in the area since Winstanley’s Levellers, not the dogs on string ones. Another is the eccentric with firm views on planning legislation who turns up at everything. The others are friendly faces from the Corbyn movement and are pretty sensible.

After a bit of milling around, Julie announces that she has been asked to chair the meeting because she used to work for Len McCluskey in Unite. Nobody objects because nobody knows who she is and someone has to run the thing.

She proposes an agenda. People can introduce themselves, say why they are interested in the new party and something about themselves. After that we can talk about what we think our new party should do. Jeremy and Zarah have said there will be a conference quite soon, so perhaps we can see if anyone would like to go. After that we can set a date for the next meeting and maybe go to the pub afterwards, if anyone fancies it.

Let’s go round the room and say a little bit about ourselves.

My name’s Jim and I’m a retired social worker. People are angry about Palestine and so am I. Jeremy is brilliant on Palestine. (Jim forgets to mention he’s been in the SWP since the execution of Charles the First and was told at gunpoint by his organiser that he had to skip the football and argue the party line.)

Hi, I’m Tanya. I’m a student and I really need to tell you that only the Revolutionary Communist Party can solve the crisis of capitalism by overthrowing the bourgeoisie internationally. If you don’t agree with all 1200 of us then you are a deluded fool. Does anyone want to buy this brilliant book by Ted Grant? He was like Trotsky, but better. I am training to be part of the general staff of the revolution.

Bob. Are we sure that we are OK with data protection if we set up an email list. We should do something on Twitter, that’s what I still call it. Bluesky is nicer though I’m not sure if too many people use it.

And so it goes. All the people who have spent decades in the SWP forget to mention it. This means that the trusting and naïve in the room don’t quite understand why they always agree with each other and vote the same way. The RCP want everyone to sign up to the entire revolutionary programme before you can have a pint. If you are in an area where there will be elections in May that might get discussed. That is a different circle of hell.

Julie draws the meeting to a close but says even though we aren’t quite sure when the big launch conference will be, it would be good to know if anyone might be interested in going. Guess which hands shoot up instantly.

The meeting concludes with the passing of a sign-up sheet, some recreational paper selling and a trip to the pub where the genuine punters are courted.