Contact with Lancashire workers converted James from bookish socialism to critical skepticism.

Evidence

Indeed, he would later admit that the development of his critical stance regarding the Labour Party (with which he had identified as a “Ciprianian” nationalist) was due to discussions with Lancashire workers that brought discredit on the Party’s leadership: “My Labour and Socialist ideas had been got from books and were rather abstract. These humorously cynical working men were a revelation and brought me down to earth.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1237