Red Pepper (magazine)
- This article is about a UK magazine. For other meanings, see Red Pepper.
 |
Red Pepper is an independent ‘red, green and radical’ magazine based in the UK.
Origins
Red Pepper was founded by the Socialist Movement – an independent left-wing grouping that grew out of a series of large conferences held in Chesterfield after the defeat of Britain’s miners’ strike. The Socialist Movement set up a campaigning, fortnightly newspaper called Socialist in Autumn 1991. It lasted for 18 months.
Supporters of The Socialist were convinced that there was a demand for a regular green-left publication, published independently of any political party. After a fundraising drive, which raised an initial £135,000, Red Pepper launched in May 1995.
Its first editor was Denise Searle, who also edited Socialist. But for most of its 11 year history, it has been edited by socialist and feminist Hilary Wainwright – author of Beyond the Fragments, Reclaim the State and Arguments for a New Left. Wainwright is also a fellow of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute.
Politics
Red Pepper’s editorial charter commits it to ‘Internationalism; sustainable, socially useful production; welfare not warfare; and self-determination and democracy.’
This charter claims it as: ‘a magazine of political rebellion and dissent. Influenced by socialism, feminism and green politics, it is a resource for all those who imagine and work to create another world – a world based on equality, solidarity, and democracy.’
The magazine is unusual for the UK left, insofar as it is independent of any political party.
Red Pepper is also collaborating in Eurotopia, a network of left and progressive European magazines which currently publishes a multilingual quarterly supplement.
External links
- Red Pepper website
- Red Pepper newsblog
- Eurotopia project
- Free Radical Guardian interview with Hilary Wainwright on Red Pepper's 10th anniversary