Hard left

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Political descriptor

title: "Hard left" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["left-wing-politics", "australian-labor-party-factions", "political-terminology-in-australia", "labour-party-(uk)-factions", "left-wing-politics-in-the-united-kingdom", "politics-of-the-united-kingdom"] description: "Political descriptor" topic_path: "politics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_left" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Political descriptor ::

Hard left or hard-left is a term that is used particularly in Australian and British English to describe 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 the Australian Labor Party.

Australia

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 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 the far-left "Tomato Left" faction, which included Bill Hartley, George Crawford, and Joan Coxsedge.

Britain

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 the Socialist 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 the Conservative Party's election campaigns of the early 1990s, and by the media.Use by BBC: * "Kinnock attacks hard left", BBC World Service. 18 September 1998.

Use by The Independent:

Use by The Glasgow Herald:

  • It has continued to be used pejoratively for the left-wing of the Labour Party.

References

References

  1. "Definition of 'hard left'".
  2. "Definition of hard left".
  3. (2016-01-05). "Labour's left wing 'can't tolerate dissent', a right-wing Labour MP has claimed".
  4. Megalogenis, George. (2010-11-16). "Quarterly Essay 40 Trivial Pursuit: Leadership and the End of the Reform Era". Black Inc..
  5. Sartor, Frank. (2011). "The Fog on the Hill: How NSW Labor Lost Its Way". Melbourne Univ. Publishing.
  6. Harris, Tony. (2007-08-10). "Basket Weavers and True Believers: Making and unmaking the Labor Left in Leichhardt Municipality, c.1970–1991". Leftbank Press.
  7. Harris, Tony. (2007-08-10). "Basket Weavers and True Believers: Making and unmaking the Labor Left in Leichhardt Municipality, c.1970–1991". Leftbank Press.
  8. Eric Shaw. (1 January 1988). "Discipline and Discord in the Labour Party: The Politics of Managerial Control in the Labour Party, 1951–87". Manchester University Press.
  9. (2011). "Michael Foot and the Labour leadership". Cambridge Scholars.
  10. Hill, Dave. (2002). "Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory". Lexington Books.
  11. Andrew Roth. (20 March 2001). "Dennis Skinner". [[The Guardian]].
  12. Thorpe, Andrew. (June 2022). ["A History of the British Labour Party"](https://books.google.com/books?id=CAMoBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT228}} {{dead link). Palgrave Macmillan.
  13. (29 July 2005). "Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left". Edinburgh University Press.

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left-wing-politicsaustralian-labor-party-factionspolitical-terminology-in-australialabour-party-(uk)-factionsleft-wing-politics-in-the-united-kingdompolitics-of-the-united-kingdom