Editing Soft left (section)

==Contemporary soft left==
In 2015, [[Neal Lawson]], the chair of the [[think tank]] [[Compass (think tank)|Compass]], identified the organisation as a successor to the soft left.<ref name="Hutchinson 2021" /> Compass disaffiliated from Labour in 2011 in order to open up their membership to people belonging to other political parties.<ref name="n2">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/24/soft-left-labour-splinter-party|title=Without the soft left, Labour is doomed to splinter|last=Lawson|first=Neal|author-link=Neal Lawson|date=24 July 2015|website=[[The Guardian]]|accessdate=12 September 2015}}</ref> The activist group [[Open Labour]] was launched in 2015 with the aim of developing a new forum for the soft left political tradition within the party, which it hopes to recast as the "Open Left".<ref name="n3">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/09/labour-activists-launch-new-group-on-partys-left|title=Labour activists launch new group on party's left|last=Wintour|first=Patrick|author-link=Patrick Wintour|date=9 December 2015|website=[[The Guardian]]|accessdate=12 October 2016}}</ref><ref name="n4">{{cite web|url=http://openlabour.org/comment/more-than-just-an-interim|title=More than just an interim|last=Azim|first=Jade|date=9 December 2015}}</ref><ref name="Thompson Pitts Ingold pp. 32–39" /> In the [[2017 United Kingdom general election|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 [[Political positions of Jeremy Corbyn|Corbynite]] remnants on the left, and [[Progressive Britain|Progress]] and [[Labour First]] on the right".<ref name="Thompson Pitts Ingold pp. 32–39"/> [[Keir Starmer]], the current leader of the Labour Party, and [[Angela Rayner]], the current deputy leader, have both been described as soft left.<ref name="Thompson Pitts Ingold pp. 32–39"/><ref>{{cite news |last1=Williams |first1=Zoe |title=Keir Starmer's soft-left approach is the unifying force that Labour needs |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/21/keir-starmer-soft-left-approach-unifying-labour |accessdate=2 August 2020 |work=The Guardian |date=21 January 2020}}</ref><ref name="raynerguardian" />