Rix joined the Labour Party in February 1980. He created the left-wing FUWL group (Fed Up With Losing) in 1999 after a discussion with Kenny Cameron, Alan Sapper and Ken Gill. The group became more widely known in the public and media as the "awkward squad", after journalist Kevin Maguire coined the term in an article in "The Guardian" in 2001, in which he also reported that Rix had recently rejoined Labour after a period in the Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party. Rix insisted that the FUWL group had not to ape the left of the old days but had to include a senior officer, senior lay member and a trusted staffer, so that the decisions made at FUWL meetings would go through the various networks of union internal structures. FUWL insisted that it was not the preserve of males, and included the very powerful TUC women's network, along with the editor of the "Morning Star". FUWL became a powerful block on the TUC. FUWL basically wrote the policy agenda and in 2001 it ended the right wing dominance at the TUC on policy, and in winning elections to the general council elections in a number of unions. FUWL worked with the Campaign Group of MPs on a whole host of projects.