A new Labour group is aiming to bring together the most “electorally compelling” ideas of activists from the Corbyn-supporting left to the Blairite right of the party.

The group, called Consensus, has been founded by campaigners involved in other movements across the Labour spectrum including Momentum, Progress and the Fabian Society.

It is also backed by a number of high-profile MPs including Seema Malhotra, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury; Stephen Kinnock, a new MP and the son of the former Labour leader Neil; and Jon Cruddas, Ed Miliband’s former policy chief.

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Consensus will formally launch next month with a series of lectures and seminars against a backdrop of divisions within Labour and the Conservative parliamentary parties.

With the Tory party in turmoil and possibly facing a leadership contest after the EU referendum, some senior Labour figures are already turning their thoughts to the possibility of another general election as early as this year, or at least sooner than the official date of 2020, underlining the urgent need for the party to start renewing its policy thinking.

Before the launch, Malhotra said the new group would have an important role in bringing together different strands of Labour thinking, as it is “vital that we provide effective opposition and show that we are a credible potential party of government”.

Cruddas, who played a central role in drawing up Labour’s manifesto at the last election, said he hoped the group could encourage a true debate across the party at “this pivotal moment in Labour history”.

He said: “The Labour party is currently undergoing an intensive period of reimagining its policies – and Britain’s future more widely. In order to harness the full potential of every member’s ideas, it is vital that everyone works together no matter where they are situated on the ideological spectrum of the left.”

Although some Labour MPs have been hostile to Momentum, Jeremy Corbyn’s group of grassroots supporters, the movement is also participating in the new organisation.

Samuel Tarry, a Momentum activist, said the Labour party was “by electoral necessity a broad coalition” and said: “We have built consensus in the party, and with the public, about our vision to change society for the better.”

He added: “For me, challenging the neoliberal consensus that has dominated thinking both inside our party and in wider society, about how best to run an economy, is a huge challenge. One which [shadow chancellor] John McDonnell has ably begun the hard task of taking on so we can build a new consensus about an economy that works for the 99% not the 1%.”

Rayhan Haque, a founding committee member of Consensus, said part of the purpose of the group was to help put an end to “fractious and open denouncements of each other” that would only benefit the Conservatives. But it was also about “recognising that all intellectual wings of the party have a key role to play in building consensus on policy issues”.