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The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was a United Kingdom political party which existed between 1981 and 1990.
It was created in 1981 by a centrist breakaway group from the Labour Party who opposed the sharp leftward shift in Labour policy following the election of Michael Foot, and the involvment of trade unions in choosing the leader of the Labour party. They argued that a new political force was needed to challenge the Conservative Party, and the leader of that party should be elected by its entire membership, rather than the electoral college now in use in the Labour party.
The founding members, the "gang of four", were senior Labour moderates: the leader Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, and Shirley Williams. They announced the new party at a press conference and outlined their policies in the "Limehouse declaration" [1] (http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/record.jsp?type=page&ID=176&limehouse%20declaration).
From the outset, the SDP's central purpose was in question: whether its alliance with the Liberal Party would lead to a merged party, or that the two parties were destined to compete with each other. This was not a public issue in the first year, but became increasingly serious.
About 28 Labour MPs joined the new party, along with one member of the Conservative Party. Jenkins and Williams were not at the time MPs, but were elected to the Commons in by-elections.
The SDP formed the SDP-Liberal Alliance with the Liberal Party late in 1981, under the joint leadership of Roy Jenkins (SDP) and David Steel (Lib). Initially, the Alliance achieved considerable success in parliamentary by-elections and, at one point, an opinion poll rating of over 50%. In early 1982, after public disagreements over who could fight which seats in the forthcoming election, the poll rating dipped. Following victory in the Falklands War of March to June 1982, the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher gained popularity, and the standing of the Alliance and Labour declined.
The Alliance did well in the 1983 general election, running Labour very close, winning 25% of the national vote (to Labour's 28%) but only secured 23 MPs, losing all but five of the MPs who had formed the SDP. In 1987, with the SDP now under the leadership of David Owen, the Alliance's share of the vote fell slightly.
After the disappointment of 1987, Steel proposed a formal merger of the two parties. He was fiercely opposed by Owen, but the majority of the SDP membership agreed to the union. Owen resigned as leader and was replaced by Robert Maclennan. Steel and Maclennan headed the new "Social and Liberal Democrat Party" (SLD) from March 3, 1988 (who were re-named the Liberal Democrats in October 1989).
Most SDP members and two of the party's five remaining MP's joined the merged Liberal Democrat party. But Owen remained defiantly at the head of the newly re-established and much reduced SDP, along with two other MPs.
Although the rump SDP beat the other parties to second place behind William Hague in the Richmond by-election in 1989, by 1990 they finished behind the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in the Bootle by-election. Within a week Owen had announced the end of the party.
A small number of SDP activists carried on without David Owen under the SDP name for several years, after the official demise of the party in 1990. The rump SDP finished fourth at the Neath By-election in 1991, and they were to hold a number of council seats in Yorkshire and South Wales throughout the 1990s. To this day the occasional Social Democratic Party candidate pops up in the odd council election, and there have been occasions when they have won.
It has been argued by some that the creation of the SDP led eventually to Tony Blair's movement of the Labour Party back towards the political centre, and the creation of New Labour. But those Labour moderates who remained in the party, such as Roy Hattersley, argue that the split in the centre-left both aided the Conservatives and delayed the move of the Labour Party to a centrist position. A number of former SDP officials now work as policy advisers to Tony Blair's government.
Leaders of the Social Democratic Party, 1982-1988 See also: Politics of the United Kingdom
The Social Democratic Party was also the official name of the Social Democratic Federation after 1907.
External Links
- Limehouse Declaration [2] (http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/record.jsp?type=page&ID=176&limehouse%20declaration)
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