Hard left

Hard left is a term used, often pejoratively, to refer to political movements and ideas outside the mainstream centre-left, including those also referred to as being far or extreme left.

The term has been used more formally in the United Kingdom, 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 "hard left", represented by 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 Derek Hatton, Ken Livingstone, Dennis Skinner and Eric Heffer. The term has been used since then by Labour's political opponents, for example during the Conservative Party's election campaigns of the early 1990s, and by the media. Momentum, a group founded to support Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party, has been described as hard left.