Open Labour is an activist group operating within the Labour Party. Open Labour operates as a forum for Labour Party members to discuss ideas, tactics and campaigning in the soft leftpolitical tradition, which the organisation hopes to recast as the "open left". Within the party, Open Labour is generally positioned to the right of internal left-wing groups like Momentum and to the left of New Labour groups such as Progress. The organisation has been described as an "umbrella group of the Left".
History
Open Labour was founded in 2015 following the 2015 Labour Party leadership election with the aim of giving voice to the soft left tradition within the Labour Party, which many felt had been largely absent from the debate. The soft left tradition within Labour goes back to the 1980s. While many Labour MPs, including the recent Labour leaderEd Miliband, had at times been characterised as coming from the soft left politically, there had not been an internal group advocating for this stand of politics since Compass opened up its membership to parties beyond Labour in 2011. Since its founding, Open Labour has produced and published a number of essays across a range of topics on its website, and has help several meetings and conferences to establish its strategy and political positions. It has also held a number of political fringe events at Labour Party conferences. While still a new organisation, Open Labour has offered its backing to candidates in internal party elections and candidate selections for local and general elections. Several Open Labour activists were elected to Parliament in the 2017 United Kingdom general election, including Open Labour Treasurer Alex Sobel, Rosie Duffield, Jo Platt, Emma Hardy, Anna McMorrin, and Lloyd Russell-Moyle. Founding committee member Ann Black was a longstanding member of Labour's National Executive Committee, with the group backing her in her failed re-election bid in 2018. During the 2020 Labour Leadership Elections, Open Labour endorsed Lisa Nandy for Leader and Angela Rayner for Deputy Leader after an extensive ballot of its members.
Political positions
Coming politically from the soft left tradition within Labour, Open Labour looks to recast this ideology as the "open left", defining it as "a practical, open-minded and tolerant type of democratic socialism". The group promotes a "democratic, participatory and pluralist culture". Their beliefs include advocating an economic platform of transforming the UK economy to a higher-investment, environmentally conscious and more democratic model. They are also generally pro-European, and call for Labour to maintain a close relationship with Europe and its sister parties' on the continent, and for solidarity with those campaigning for social justice here and internationally. Open Labour has roots in the history of organisations like the Tribune Group and the Labour Coordinating Committee, but also through local government and through trade unions. In an article about the 2017 Labour Party Conference, Isabel Hardman described the group as " the Corbynite flag", arguing that it and the wider soft left in Labour had shifted to the left after that year's general election.
