Editing Soft left (section)

==History==
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 was in the [[Tribune (magazine)|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.<ref name="Seyd 1987 pp. 159–171">{{cite book | last=Seyd | first=Patrick | title=The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left | chapter=Left Disintegration and Decline | publisher=Macmillan Education UK | publication-place=London | year=1987 | doi=10.1007/978-1-349-18923-6_7 | pages=159–171| isbn=978-0-333-44748-2 }}</ref><ref name="TIDES OF HISTORY  2020">{{cite web | title=Kinnock v Benn: Labour's Final Battle of the 1980s – TIDES OF HISTORY | website=TIDES OF HISTORY – Commentary on Labour History, British Politics and Working Class Culture | date=2020-03-31 | url=https://tidesofhistory.com/2020/03/31/kinnock-v-benn-labours-final-battle-of-the-1980s/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814202405/https://tidesofhistory.com/2020/03/31/kinnock-v-benn-labours-final-battle-of-the-1980s/ | url-status=usurped | archive-date=August 14, 2020 | access-date=2021-10-05}}</ref>

In the [[1981 Labour Party deputy leadership election|election for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 1981]], [[Left-wing politics|left-wingers]] such as [[Neil Kinnock]] abstained from voting for Tony Benn, signaling the emergence of an independent soft left grouping in the party.<ref name="Hutchinson 2021">{{cite web | last=Hutchinson | first=Nicky | title=The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, or: How the 1980s Soft Left Is Making a Comeback | website=New Socialist | date=2021-06-13 | url=http://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/adventures-tom-sawyer-or-how-1980s-soft-left-making-comeback/ | access-date=2021-10-05}}</ref><ref name="Prospect 2015">{{cite web | last=Kellner| first=Peter | title=I'm holding out for my Labour Party hero—Neil Kinnock | website=Prospect Magazine | date=2015-07-23 | url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/im-holding-out-for-my-labour-party-hero-neil-kinnock | access-date=2021-10-05}}</ref> The term came to be used in contrast to [[hard left]], who were more explicitly [[socialist]] in rhetoric, remaining associated with Benn.<ref name="Thompson Pitts Ingold pp. 32–39">{{cite journal | last1=Thompson | first1=Paul | last2=Pitts | first2=Frederick Harry | last3=Ingold | first3=Jo | title=A Strategic Left? Starmerism, Pluralism and the Soft Left | journal=The Political Quarterly | publisher=Wiley | volume=92 | issue=1 | date=2020-11-30 | issn=0032-3179 | doi=10.1111/1467-923x.12940 | pages=32–39| s2cid=229426961 | doi-access=free | hdl=10536/DRO/DU:30146456 | hdl-access=free }}</ref> In common with the party right, the soft left was suspicious of the hard left's alliance with [[Trotskyism]] (particularly its links with [[Militant tendency|Militant]]), supported a [[reformism|parliamentary rather than extra-parliamentary road to socialism]], retreated from a commitment to widening [[nationalisation|public ownership]] of the economy, and tended towards [[Atlanticist]] or [[Europeanist]] rather than [[anti-imperialist]] foreign policy.<ref name="Lloyd 2021">{{cite web | last=Lloyd | first=John | title=From the NS Archive: Tony Benn and a Labour leadership challenge [1988]| website=New Statesman | date=2021-07-07 | url=https://www.newstatesman.com/archive/2021/07/ns-archive-tony-benn-and-labour-leadership-challenge | access-date=2021-10-05}}</ref><ref name="The Critic Magazine">{{cite web | title="I'll tell you and you'll listen": the Neil Kinnock speech that lives on – Anthony Broxton | website=The Critic Magazine | date=October 2020 | url=https://thecritic.co.uk/the-neil-kinnock-speech-that-lives-on/ | access-date=2021-10-05}}</ref>

The parliamentary group which came to be associated with the soft left was the ''Tribune'' group. The ''Tribune'' group was formed around the [[Tribune (magazine)|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 the soft left's main factional organisation in the 1980s, despite having begun its life as a Bennite or "hard left" body.<ref name="Hutchinson 2021"/><ref name="Thompson Pitts Ingold pp. 32–39"/> 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 (political philosophy)|pluralism]], including multifarious forms of [[social ownership]] and widening Labour's electoral coalition.<ref name="Thompson Pitts Ingold pp. 32–39"/> Figures identified with the soft left in the 1980s included MPs [[David Blunkett]], [[Robin Cook]], [[Bryan Gould]] and [[Clare Short]].<ref name="Hutchinson 2021"/>

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 of the Labour Party|National Executive Committee]].<ref name="Heffernan 2000 p.73-77 ">{{cite book | last=Heffernan | first=Richard | title=New labour and Thatcherism : political change in Britain | publisher=St. Martin's Press | publication-place=New York, N.Y. | year=2000 | isbn=0-333-73897-7 | pages=73–77}}</ref> Soft left candidates increasingly gained positions in the party leadership after 1983, but Kinnock and deputy leader [[Roy Hattersley]] kept the party to their right. Kinnock's defeat in the [[1992 United Kingdom general election|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]].<ref name="Thompson Pitts Ingold pp. 32–39"/> 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.<ref name="Hutchinson 2021"/> However, activist figures such as the [[National Executive Committee of the Labour Party|National Executive Committee]] member [[Ann Black]] and a range of MPs continued to work as part of the 'broad left'.