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. For most of its history it appeared monthly, but relaunched as a bi-monthly during 2007.

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 in 1987 and 1988 after the defeat of Britain’s miners’ strike of the mid-1980s. 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 as a monthly in May 1995.

Its first editor was Denise Searle, who had also edited Socialist. But for most of its 13 year history, it has been edited by socialist and feminist Hilary Wainwright best known as the co-author of Beyond the Fragments. Prominent journalists involved with the publication at some point include Nick Cohen and Barbara Gunnell. Since August 2005, Red Pepper has been co-edited by Hilary Wainwright and Oscar Reyes.

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 has also collaborated in 'Eurotopia', a network of left and progressive European magazines which publishes a multilingual supplement.

External links

• Red Pepper website
• Red Pepper blogs
• Eurotopia project
• Free Radical Guardian interview with Hilary Wainwright on Red Pepper's 10th anniversary
• Red Pepper Myspace Page