John Rees (activist)

John Rees
At a demonstration in 2008 against Condoleezza Rice in Liverpool.
Born	Wiltshire
Occupation	Journalist
Known for	Politics

John Rees (born 1957) is a left-wing British political activist, broadcaster and writer who is a national officer of the Stop the War Coalition, a spokesman for the People's Assembly Against Austerity, and founding member of Counterfire. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London.

He was formerly a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party. His books include Timelines, a political history of the modern world and A People's History of London, co-authored with Lindsey German.

Rees was born in Wiltshire and was brought up and educated in Chippenham. His father, William Rees was from Aberdare, South Wales, and was a lifelong trade union activist and Labour Party member. His mother, Margaret Rees (née Shipley) was from Darlington. Rees' first degree was in Politics from Portsmouth Polytechnic and he subsequently undertook research on Hegel and Marx at Hull University under Dr (now Lord) Bhikhu Parekh. The result of that research, The Algebra of Revolution, was published by Routledge in 1998. When Georg Lukacs' unknown manuscript "Tailism and the Dialectic" was discovered and published by Verso in 2000, Rees provided the introduction to the volume. He holds a doctorate on 'Leveller organisation and the dynamic of the English Revolution' from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Elected a member of the National Executive of the National Union of Students in the early 1980s, Rees is a former member of the Socialist Workers Party, and was for many years on its Central Committee. He was editor of the quarterly journal International Socialism for ten years and the organiser of the SWP's annual Marxism festival in 1982 and 1983 and again between 1992 and 2002.