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28-519: In the context of the Labour Party, the term "soft left" was coined in 1981 , when Neil Kinnock refused to support Tony Benn for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party ( see History ). It described a faction of the party which disagreed with the conservative tendencies of the Labour right and the radical tendencies of the "Bennite" left, also known as the hard left . In parliament, it

56-411: A bit like you've sort of collapsed into a jellyfish". Open Labour , the main organisation representing the soft left, has preferred to use the term "open left". The distinction between hard and soft left became evident during the leadership of Michael Foot (1980–1983), who, along with Tony Benn , was one of the two figureheads of the party left. Supporters of Foot (an anti-communist whose background

84-590: A leader of the soft left, became leader of the Labour Party in 1983 . When he moved rightwards in this role, the soft left followed him. As alliances were made between the soft left and the party leadership, the ideological distinctiveness of the LCC and the Tribune Group declined. The soft left formed an alliance with the Labour right to oppose the Bennite left and support Kinnock's leadership. During his leadership,

112-413: A range of MPs continued to work as part of the 'broad left'. In 2015, Neal Lawson , the chair of the think tank Compass , identified the organisation as a successor to the soft left. Compass disaffiliated from Labour in 2011 in order to open up their membership to people belonging to other political parties. The activist group Open Labour was launched in 2015 with the aim of developing a new forum for

140-510: A year after the election of Michael Foot as leader, which had seen the party shift to the left and resulted in a split which had created the SDP , who in turn had formed an alliance with the Liberal Party to appeal to centrist voters. A documentary, This Week: Benn's Bandwagon was first shown on 28 April 1981, in the second month of the contest and at the point when it began to dawn on

168-673: The Australian Labor Party . As with the Labor Right faction, the Labor Left faction of the Australian Labor Party is split between multiple competing sub-factions, called "fractions". These vary between state branches and in union support and affiliation. In New South Wales , the left is split mainly between the so-called "hard" left and "soft" left . The hard left was historically focused on

196-615: The Campaign Group , subscribed to more strongly socialist views while the " soft left ", associated for example with the Tribune Group , embraced more moderate social democratic ideas. Politicians commonly described as being on the hard left of the Labour Party at the time included Tony Benn , Derek Hatton , Ken Livingstone , Dennis Skinner , and Eric Heffer . The term has since then often been used pejoratively by Labour's political opponents, for example, during

224-519: The far-left "Tomato Left" faction, which included Bill Hartley , George Crawford , and Joan Coxsedge . The term was first used in the context of debates within both the Labour Party and the broader left in the 1980s to describe Trotskyist groups such as the Militant tendency , Socialist Organiser and Socialist Action . Within the party, the Labour left or "hard left", represented by

252-475: The Bennite left is known as the "realignment of the left". In modern politics, the soft left refers to a faction in the Labour Party which opposed the New Labour project but has avoided the politics of the modern Labour left, also known as the hard left. Ideologically, it is described as centre-left and is typically thought to occupy the space in the party between the Labour left and the Labour right. While

280-416: The Labour left is more supportive of socialism, the soft left is more supportive of social democracy . It believes in compromising more traditional socialist policies to make Labour more electable. It is one of the four main factions in the modern Labour Party. The term "soft left" has been said to carry negative connotations which can suggest a less enthusiastic approach to socialism. It has been argued that

308-565: The economy, and tended towards Atlanticist or Europeanist rather than anti-imperialist foreign policy. The parliamentary group which came to be associated with the soft left was the Tribune group. The Tribune group was formed around the newspaper of the same name and had represented the party left as a whole until Benn's allies formed the Socialist Campaign Group . The Labour Co-ordinating Committee grew to become

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336-574: The event of a Benn victory the SDP hoped to attract a number of significant defectors from the Labour Party and argues that while not obvious in 1981 the victory of Healey "marked the beginning of the end for the SDP". This United Kingdom election -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hard left Hard left or hard-left is a term that is used particularly in Australian and British English to describe

364-481: The incumbent deputy leader Denis Healey at the party conference. Healey had been elected unopposed as deputy leader in the previous year. The election took place at the Labour Party conference, with affiliated trade unions holding 40% of the votes, delegates from Constituency Labour Parties holding 30% of the votes, and the Parliamentary Labour Party holding the final 30% of the votes. It

392-678: The left, and Progress and Labour First on the right". Keir Starmer , the current leader of the Labour Party, and Angela Rayner , the current deputy leader, have both been described as soft left. People belonging to the soft left may be called soft leftists or Tribunites. The following Labour politicians are often considered to have been on the soft left of the party for at least some of their careers, but may not identify themselves as such: 1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election Denis Healey Denis Healey The 1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election took place on 27 September 1981 when Tony Benn unsuccessfully challenged

420-510: The more social democratic wing of the party. It transpired it was the union ("Affiliated") block provided a majority for Dennis Healy, and had its share of the vote been equal to that of the PLP and the party membership (via the CLPs) then Healey's narrow majority would have been wiped out and the more left-wing Benn would have won the contest. The challenge for the deputy leadership of the party came

448-501: The most radical members of a left-wing political party or political group . The term is also a noun and modifier taken to mean the far-left and the left-wing political movements and ideas outside the mainstream centre-left . The term has been used to describe wings and factions of several political parties across the world, such as the left-wing of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom and left-wing factions of

476-531: The party to their right. Kinnock's defeat in the 1992 general election signalled an end to the soft left's rise, as they were increasingly marginalised by the modernisation project associated with Tony Blair . The 1980s soft left began to diverge over time; for example, some figures (such as Blunkett) became loyalists to Blair by the end of the 1990s. However, activist figures such as the National Executive Committee member Ann Black and

504-435: The party. The term came to be used in contrast to hard left , who were more explicitly socialist in rhetoric, remaining associated with Benn. In common with the party right, the soft left was suspicious of the hard left's alliance with Trotskyism (particularly its links with Militant ), supported a parliamentary rather than extra-parliamentary road to socialism , retreated from a commitment to widening public ownership of

532-419: The pundits that Tony Benn was going to come close to winning. Healey's victory has been seen as a significant moment in the history of the Labour Party. Future Labour leader and Prime Minister Tony Blair said after Healey's death that "in winning the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 1981, he probably saved the Labour Party as an instrument of government and social change". Steve Richards notes that in

560-428: The soft left also formed a new moderniser faction with members of the Labour right against the party's traditionalist faction. The soft left was no longer an identifiable faction on the Labour left by the time of the 1992 general election , with the Tribune Group disbanding by the time Tony Blair became Labour leader in 1994 . The process whereby the soft left drifted away from the Labour left and pitched itself against

588-583: The soft left in the 1980s included MPs David Blunkett , Robin Cook , Bryan Gould and Clare Short . While Kinnock initially emerged from the soft left, portraying himself as a "media-friendly Michael Foot", he tacked to the right of the Tribune group, although they continued to vote with him in the National Executive Committee . Soft left candidates increasingly gained positions in the party leadership after 1983, but Kinnock and deputy leader Roy Hattersley kept

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616-462: The soft left political tradition within the party, which it hopes to recast as the "Open Left". In the 2017 general election , several Open Labour activists were elected to Parliament including Open Labour Treasurer Alex Sobel , Emma Hardy , and Rosie Duffield . In the aftermath of the party leadership (2015–20) of Jeremy Corbyn , who has been identified as a hard left MP, the term was generally used to mean "the space between Corbynite remnants on

644-462: The soft left's main factional organisation in the 1980s, despite having begun its life as a Bennite or "hard left" body. The soft left, influenced by the intellectual interventions of Mike Rustin, Geoff Hodgson and Peter Hain , increasingly rejected the socialism from above of Stalinism and social democracy . It stressed pluralism , including multifarious forms of social ownership and widening Labour's electoral coalition. Figures identified with

672-415: The term "inside left" should be used instead. The left-leaning magazines New Statesman and Tribune have used the term as well. However, unlike the term "hard left", which can be considered pejorative , "soft left" members have used the term as a self-descriptor to distance themselves from the "hard left". Soft left MP Lisa Nandy advocates a "better name" for the faction; she has said the term "sounds

700-436: The trade union movement and international issues, and organised around figures like Frank Walker , Arthur Gietzelt , and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese . The soft left presented a "more pragmatic" vision of the left and used rank-and-file members to gain power through branch stacking, and organised around politicians Peter Baldwin and Jack Ferguson . In Victoria , the term "hard left" historically referred to

728-430: Was in the Tribune group) and Benn (originally on the party's right but by the end of the 1970s to Foot's left and a more uncompromising supporter of unilateral nuclear disarmament ) became increasingly polarised. In the election for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 1981 , left-wingers such as Neil Kinnock abstained from voting for Tony Benn, signaling the emergence of an independent soft left grouping in

756-569: Was represented by the Tribune Group of MPs and consequently came to be known as the Tribunite left as well. The soft left also aligned itself with the Labour Co-ordinating Committee (LCC). The soft left was initially considered another faction in the Labour left along with the Bennite left, though unlike the Bennite left, it was willing to compromise on some issues to keep the party united and electable. Neil Kinnock,

784-432: Was the first election to take place using the party's electoral college. At this time 40% of the votes were given to affiliated unions and societies, and 30% each to the Parliamentary Labour Party and delegates representing individual members and activists of the party via their local Constituency Labour Parties (CLP) . When this plurality in favour of the unions was first introduced, it received considerable criticism from

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