The origin of the party can be traced back to the ideological divisions in the Labour Party in the 1950s (with its forerunner being the Campaign for Democratic Socialism established to support the Gaitskellites), but publicly lies in the 1979 Dimbleby Lecture given by Roy Jenkins as he neared the end of his presidency of the European Commission. Jenkins argued the necessity for a realignment in British politics, and discussed whether this could be brought about from within the existing Liberal Party, or from a new group driven by European principles of social democracy.[11]
In some areas, the Militant tendency were held to be systematically targeting weak local party branches in safe seat areas in order to have their own candidates selected, and thus become MPs. Eddie Milne at Blyth (Northumberland) and Dick Taverne in Lincoln were both victims of such intrigues during the 1970s, but in both cases there was enough of a local outcry by party members – and the electorate – for them to fight and win their seats as independent candidates against the official Labour candidates.[12]
In Taverne's case, he had been fighting efforts by the Lincoln Constituency Labour Party to deselect him largely over his support for British membership of the European Communities. In October 1972 he resigned his seat to force a by-election in which he fought as a Democratic Labour candidate against the official party candidate. Taverne won by an unexpectedly large margin.[13] He founded the short lived Campaign for Social Democracy (CFSD) thereafter, and wrote a book about events surrounding the by-election called The Future of the Left – Lincoln and After (1972). But the CFSD failed to gain nationwide support, and Taverne lost the seat at the October 1974 general election. Some independent Social Democrats contested the October 1974 and 1979 general elections, but none were elected.
Taverne's Lincoln by-election campaign was also helped to a lesser degree by problems with the Conservative and Unionist Party candidate, Conservative Monday Club chairman Jonathan Guinness. His suggestion during the by-election that murderers should have razor blades left in their cells so they could decently commit suicide resulted in him being nicknamed "Old Razor Blades" during the campaign. This, combined with considerable Conservative grassroots disquiet over the Monday Club's links to the National Front, persuaded some Conservative voters to switch to Taverne in protest as much as tactically to ensure Labour suffered an embarrassing loss. (Guinness had been elected as Chairman specifically to eradicate such links.)
Thirteen Labour MPs initially declared support for the Council for Social Democracy. On 20 February 1981, three of these Tom Ellis, Richard Crawshaw and Ian Wrigglesworth resigned the Labour whip and another, Tom Bradley, announced he would not contest his seat again as a Labour candidate. These moves were reported to be a clear move towards formally creating a new centre party.[16] Former Labour Party deputy leader, Baron George-Brown also announced his membership of the Council for Social Democracy.[17]
"Democratic", "Democratic Labour", and "Radical" were all mentioned as possible names for the new party, as well as "New Labour"[a] but eventually "Social Democratic" was settled on because the "Gang of Four" consciously wanted to mould the philosophy and ideology of the new party on the social democracy practised on mainland Europe.
The opening statement of principles contained in the preamble of the party's constitution stated that: "The SDP exists to create and defend an open, classless and more equal society which rejects prejudices based upon sex, race, colour or religion". The constitution set out the establishment of a "Council for Social Democracy" (CSD) which was, in effect, the party's standing conference. Each area party was entitled to elect delegates to the CSD. A number of internal groups flourished within the new party, the most notable of which was the Tawney Society (mirroring the function of the Fabian Society within the Labour Party).
Michael O'Halloran (Islington North) – joined on 7 September 1981; resigned from SDP on 10 February 1983, after not being selected as a general election candidate
Nine Labour members of the House of Lords also joined the SDP on its creation, eight of whom had previously held ministerial office. In a letter to Labour Party leader Michael Foot, the defecting peers said they had taken their decision "with great sorrow".[18] They were:
Much of the party's initial public membership came from the Social Democratic Alliance. The party also received a boost with the recruitment of former student leaders from outside the Labour Party. These included former Communist Party of Great Britain member Sue Slipman as well as Conservative Party members including: Adair Turner and Tom Hayhoe.[citation needed]
Although the SDP was seen as being largely a breakaway from the right-wing of the Labour Party, a 1984 internal party survey found that 65% of its membership had not belonged to a political party before, with 22% being drawn from Labour, 8% from the Conservatives and 8% from the Liberals.[20][21] A 1981 Opinion Research Centre survey of SDP members commissioned by Weekend World found that 72% of SDP members had never been in a party before were joining a political party for the very first time, and that only 15% being former Labour Party members.[20]
The party enjoyed a considerable honeymoon period with the press, who made much mileage out of their quirk for proffering claret at their functions. Claret is an "agreeable" wine, and a metaphor for the party's harmonious internal relations compared to those of the strife-torn Labour Party of the period.
The policies of the SDP emphasised a middle position between perceived extremes of Thatcherism and the Labour Party. Its constitution argued for "the fostering of a strong public sector and a strong private sector without frequent frontier changes". The SDP favoured some neoliberal Thatcherite reforms during the 1980s, such as legislation aimed at restricting trade unions (although the parliamentary SDP actually split three ways on Norman Tebbit's 1982 Industrial Relations Bill, most voting for, some against, and others abstaining[22]). However, the party took a more welfarist position than the Conservative Party, being more sceptical of Conservative welfare reforms (particularly regarding the National Health Service).[citation needed]
At the party's first electoral contest, Jenkins narrowly failed to win a by-election at Warrington in July 1981, describing it as his "first defeat, but by far my greatest victory". At the Glasgow Hillhead by-election in March 1982, another candidate called Douglas Parkin, nominated by a party called the Social Democratic Party which had been formed in Manchester in 1979, changed his name to Roy Harold Jenkins to contest the seat.[23] SDP polling agents were given special dispensation by the Returning Officer to have placards outside of polling stations to state which one on the ballot papers was the real Roy. Ultimately, the SDP's Jenkins was elected.
A leadership election was held later in the year, Jenkins beating Owen in the ballot to become the first leader of the new party. Later in the year, Shirley Williams defeated Bill Rodgers in the ballot to become SDP president.
The SDP formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance with the Liberal Party in June 1981, under the joint leadership of Roy Jenkins (SDP) and Liberal leader David Steel. The Liberal Party, and in particular its leader, David Steel, had applauded the formation of the SDP from the sidelines from the very start. Senior Liberal MP for RochdaleCyril Smith caused some embarrassment, however, by publicly stating that the SDP "should be strangled at birth".[24]
During an era of widescale unemployment and public disillusionment with the two main parties—Labour and the Conservatives—the Alliance achieved considerable success at parliamentary by-elections. At one point in late-1981, the party had an opinion poll rating of over 50%.[25] That same year, David Steel addressed the Liberal Party conference with the phrase "Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government!"[26]
In early 1982, after public disagreements over who could fight which seats in the forthcoming election, the poll rating dipped, but the party remained ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives. However, following the outbreak of the Falklands War on 2 April 1982, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher soared from third to first place in the public opinion polls. The standing of the SDP–Liberal Alliance and Labour Party declined. By this stage, however, the SDP–Liberal Alliance already had 30 MPs in parliament, virtually all of them defectors from Labour, joined by one Conservative MP.
At the 1983 general election, the SDP–Liberal Alliance won more than 25% of the national vote, close behind Labour's 28%, but well behind the 44% secured by the Conservatives. However, because of the characteristics of the first-past-the-post electoral system used in the United Kingdom, only 23 Alliance MPs were elected, just six of whom were members of the SDP. The party's leader, Roy Jenkins, managed to retain his seat at Glasgow Hillhead, but SDP President Shirley Williams was defeated at Crosby (which she had won at a by-election in November 1981) as a result of unfavourable boundary changes. Labour Party leader Michael Foot, who resigned within days of the election, was critical of the SDP–Liberal Alliance for siphoning support away from Labour, allowing the Conservatives to win more seats and secure a triple-digit majority, while Labour was left with 209 seats in Parliament.[27]
Following the result, Jenkins was pressured to step down as leader of the SDP by David Owen, MP of Plymouth Devonport who between 1974 and 1979 had been a Labour Government Minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.[28] On 13 June, Jenkins stood down and of the six SDP MPs elected in 1983, only Owen stood for leader of the Party.[28] Subsequently he became leader without any contest a week later.[28] Owen was more sceptical about close relations with the Liberals than his predecessor Roy Jenkins, and favoured retaining the party's distinct identity. Owen's influence ensured that proposals for a merger between the two parties were shelved after a lengthy debate at the 1983 SDP conference.
During the 1983–87 parliament, some SDP members started to become unsettled at what appeared to be the increasingly right-wing course taken by SDP leader David Owen. This resulted in some members launching the Limehouse Group in an attempt to keep the party on the centre-left course that was first propounded in the Limehouse Declaration.
Two more SDP MPs were elected at by-elections during the 1983–87 parliament, but at the 1987 general election, the Alliance's share of the vote fell to 23%, and the SDP's parliamentary party was reduced from eight members to five. Roy Jenkins was among those who lost their seats. Mike Hancock had won a by-election at Portsmouth South in 1984 from the Conservatives which was lost in 1987, but Rosie Barnes, who had won the bitterly contested Greenwich by-election in February 1987 from Labour; managed to hold on at the general election in June that year.
From the outset, the formation of the Alliance had raised questions as to whether it would lead to a merged party, or the two parties were destined to compete with each other. This in turn led to grassroots tensions in some areas between Liberal and SDP branches that impaired their ability to mount joint campaigns successfully. Such cross-party feuding was part of the reason for Jenkins losing his Glasgow Hillhead seat to George Galloway of the Labour Party in 1987.
Liberal pride was further damaged by the sustained lampooning of the Alliance by ITV's popular Spitting Image satirical puppet comedy programme, which portrayed Steel as the craven lickspittle of Owen; One sketch had Owen proposing to a simpering Steel that the parties merged under a new name: "and for our side we'll take 'Social Democratic', and from your side, we'll take 'Party'"; and indeed a new leader "from your side we will take 'David' and from ours 'Owen'", to which a hesitant Steel agreed.
Merger, disestablishment and splits
After the disappointment of 1987, Steel proposed a formal merger of the two parties. Jenkins and Steel had believed this to be eventually inevitable after the party failed to break through at the 1983 election. The proposal, also supported by Williams and Rodgers, was fiercely opposed by Owen, who argued that such a merger would not be accepted by the electorate, and would not reverse their declining share of the vote. Jenkins denied that a merger had been his original intent.[29]
But the majority of the SDP's membership (along with those of the Liberals) voted in favour of the union. Owen resigned as leader and was replaced by Robert Maclennan. Steel and Maclennan headed the new "Social and Liberal Democrats" party from 3 March 1988. An interim working name for the party, the "Democrats", was adopted by conference on 26 September 1988. This proved to be unpopular, and the party was renamed the Liberal Democrats in October 1989, as had been originally proposed at the September 1988 conference by the party's Tiverton branch.[30]
Most SDP members, including SDP MP and future Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, joined Maclennan in the merged party, but Owen created a continuing SDP, along with two other MPs, John Cartwright and Rosie Barnes. This party performed poorly at the May 1990 by-election in Bootle, behind the Monster Raving Loony Party.[31] It disbanded, although a third SDP was formed, which currently operates on a much less influential scale.[32] There was also a continuing Liberal Party, led by Michael Meadowcroft and David Morrish, mainly based on Liverpool and West Country Liberals who feared a dilution by the former SDP members of the Liberal tradition within the merged party.[33] It too continues in the present day, as one of the smallest political parties with elected representatives.
The basic unit of the SDP was its Area Parties, most of which corresponded with more than one Westminster constituency.[35][36] Of the 223 area parties that existed in September 1986, only 42 were single-constituency Area Parties.[35] Area Parties were considered by party leaders as better at resisting entryism or the formation of local cliques that opposed the national party, issues the SDPs founders believed the CLPs of the Labour Party struggled with.[35][36] Additionally area parties aided the SDP's coöperation SDP–Liberal Alliance, as multi-consituancy area parties were at less risk of disenfranchisement in cases of Liberal Party led seats.[35][36]
The Party had three key leading organs. The first was the National Committee which was the executive body of the party,[37] the second was the Council for Social Democracy (CSD),[37] and the last was Policy Committee which set the policy of the SDP.[38]
Policy Committee
The Policy Committee was a sub-committee of the National Committee, and was the most powerful body of the SDP.
Membership of the Policy Committee was composed of:[38]
12 area councillors (voted on by party members of each area)
8 directly elected members
1 Young Social Democrats or SDP Students representative
Council for Social Democracy
The Council for Social Democracy was the largest of the three organs. Totaling approximately 400 elected members, it was often nicknamed as the "Parliament of the Party".[37][40] The constitution of the SDP stipulated that the CSD met thrice yearly, and that it be chaired by the President.[37]
As of the dissolution of parliament before the 1983 election, the SDP had 32 MPs. In the 1983 election, only 4 SDP MPs gained through defections were held.
Between the 1983–1987 elections, the SDP won two by-elections taking their total to 8 at dissolution, however neither were re-elected. They are not counted in the seats gained or lost section.
^Jenkins, Roy (2006). A Life at the Centre. Politico's. p. 535. ISBN978-1-84275-177-0. The case for merger arose only once the partnership had been tried on the ground ... At the beginning, while I was committed in my mind to a close partnership, I had no set view either for or against eventual merger.
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