This is “The History of Political Parties”, a series looking in-depth at short-lived, obscure, or now-defunct political organisations from across the United States and the United Kingdom who made their mark on their respective political system.
In 1981, four key former Cabinet minister shook up the British political scene when they broke off from the increasingly left-wing Labour Party, establishing the first new major political party in nearly a century. The subsequent result was a party who seemed poised to take power but would fail to break the mould of British politics as pledged and dissolved within less than a decade. A significant moment in the realignment of British politics, in the short term, the Social Democratic Party helped plunge Labour into their so-called ‘wilderness years’ and serve as an outlet for those opposed to the two-party hegemony. In the subsequent decades, the party’s influence can be seen on the emergence of New Labour and in creating the modern-day Liberal Democrats.
The SPD: A Decade in the Making?
The seeds for the SDP were arguably sewn a decade earlier, with the 1970s marked by Labour infighting that was hostile, public, and damaging.
In 1971, Shadow Cabinet minister Roy Jenkins, a long-time proponent of the European Economic Community, led a revolt of some 69 Labour MPs against a three-line whip to vote in favour of entry to the EEC. Notably, joining him were future SDP breakaways Shirley Williams, Bill Rodgers, and David Owen (as well as a number of other right-wing Labour MPs like Roy Hattersley and John Smith). The next year, Jenkins resigned as Labour Deputy Leadership, finding the role increasingly untenable with his pro-EEC views in a predominantly anti-EEC party.
Three years later, a referendum on EEC entry saw support for the Common Market backed by two-thirds of voters. In the referendum, the Four Great Office of State holders Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Chancellor Denis Healey, Foreign Secretary Jim Callaghan, and Hoem Secretary Roy Jenkins all voiced support for the ‘Yes’ campaign, siding with the Jeremy Thorpe-led Liberals and even the Thatcher-led Conservatives against a number of prominent left-wing opponents like Tony Benn, Barbara Castle, Michael Foot, Peter Shore, and John Silkin.
1973 provided a major victory for the centre-ground when the pro-Common Market Independent MP Dick Taverne won a by-election. The previous year, the left-wing local Labour Party had deselected Taverne over his pro-Europe stance, leading him to resign to trigger a by-election in which he convincingly retained his Lincoln seat, standing as Democratic Labour, with 58% of the vote. Although a triumph over the leftward move of Labour, it was not so much a win for the Labour right, with moderates Denis Healey and Anthony Crosland campaigning for the official Labour candidate John Dilks alongside left-wingers like Tony Benn, Barbara Castle, and Michael Foot and Roy Jenkins declining Taverne’s offer to advocate with him.
This was not an isolated incident, with the 1970s seeing Trotskyite Militants infiltrating local Labour Parties in an effort to oust non-socialists. In 1975, the Education Secretary Reg Prentice was deselected, in part by the infiltrators, leading Harold Wilson to condemn them as a “small and certainly not…representative groups” that were exploiting Labour from the inside after gaining local control. Prentice would later defect to the Conservative Party and serve as a Minister under Margaret Thatcher.
A divided Labour Party, to the shock of many of its own figureheads, got back into government in 1974 after winning two elections.
After eight total years as prime minister, Harold Wilson resigned. His thirty-year career to that point had arguably seen him move from the Bevanite left to the Gaitskell right, with a forever changing stance on Europe and nationalisation.
The subsequent leadership election proved a win for the right as Jim Callaghan, a stalwart of the Wilson ministry and the candidate closest to his political philosophy. Yet the left scored wins in both the leadership and deputy leadership elections.
In the leadership race, left-winger Michael Foot won the first ballot and outlasted the more popular Roy Jenkins while Tony Benn was enthralled to have defeated the right-wingers Tony Crosland, and – to a larger extent – Chancellor Denis Healey. Healey had already made enemies on the left and would be voted off the National Executive Committee in 1975 in favour of socialist Eric Heffer.
Foot would go on to win the Deputy Leadership after outpolling Shirley Williams; Foot had previously run for the job unsuccessfully in 1970, 1971, and 1972.
In government, the government was dogged by several crises.
1976 saw Healey become the vanguard of left-wing anger as he committed to £8,000 million in cuts, including to public services, to obtain an International Monetary Fund loan to stabilise the pound. As such, he found himself constantly heckled at during speeches; a similar fate met Roy Jenkins, who was pelted with a bag of flour during a 1975 speech. One later SDP defector referred to the radical left as a “bloody mob.”
In and out of parliament, the left and right blamed each other for the Winter of Discontent swathe of industrial action which brought down the Labour government (with Labour remaining locked out of government for 18 years).
Turning Point: The 1980 Leadership Election
Seemingly no event was as decisive in the establishment of the SDP as the result of the 1980 leadership race.
After Callaghan lost the 1979 election to Mrs Thatcher, Chancellor Denis Healey was the obvious frontrunner. Ladbrokes had the odds of a Healey win stood at 4-5.
Although facing opponents like Peter Shore and John Silkin, the challenge seemed muted. Tony Benn, a big name and forefront socialist agitator, had become such an anathema to the party that standing would be futile and destined to end in loss. In lieu of Benn, unions and activists pushed the unwilling Michael Foot to run. Noting that his wife may divorce him had he not stood, the reticent Foot stood.
Despite being the biggest threat to Healey, Foot’s chances remained slim. The electorate favoured Healey over Foot by 71%-16% according to one poll, whilst the public preferred Healey as prime minister compared to the incumbent Thatcher. Even amongst the devout membership, Healey held a seemingly insurmountable 43% lead.
Anti-EEC and pro-unilateral nuclear disarmament, it was a nightmare for those on the Labour social democrats.
Some note how Healey lost votes due to several factors such as Healey’s own character as sources for his shock loss. When asked why right-wingers should vote for him, he merely told them he was their only option and though more politically aligned with the Labour Party majority, Foot was a more amiable figure who had friends and could soothe tensions rather than Healey, a man who alienated even many right-wingers with a brash and rude attitude.
Others have hinted that the result was the product of self-sabotage, with social democrats voting for Foot to provide a jumping off point for defection, as in the case of Neville Sandelson.
The soon-to-be defectors already eyed up the emergency exit door, with the previous month’s Blackpool conference having “positively insane” atmosphere in the words of Anthony King and Ivor Crewe. The Labour-supporting Mirror described the “mood of political madness” adding that far-left figures like Tony Benn fueled “cynicism so blatant as to turn the stomachs of the mass of decent Labour supporters.” It was especially unpleasant for Shirley Williams who was spat at by delegates, denouncing “fascism of the left”, adding: “if you do not start to fight now, you will not have a party that is worth having.”
This was further compounded by the 1981 Wembley conference when the left won a vote shattering the ability of MPs to choose a Labour leader. Instead, the unions were given the greatest power with 40% of the say in leadership contests and just 30% to MPs (and the other 30% to constituency Labour Parties). The previous year, Bill Rodgers publicly denounced the policy in a debate with left-winger Eric Heffer. In an article in The Times, Shirley Williams accused the left of trying to reshape the party and said papering over the problem with compromise was no longer possible, in return, Mine Workers Union President Arthur Scargill accused her and colleagues of elitism and political blackmail.
The so-called “Gang of Three” of Shirley Williams, David Owen, and Bill Rodgers had already stated they would leave if Labour voted to leave the European Community. With Foot elected, Williams and Owen both stated their desire to not stand again with the current platform. With things coming to a head, The Economist noted: “The question is no longer whether they should leave the Labour Party but when. The answer is now.”
The “Gang of Four”’s Great Launch
In January 1981, outside of David Owens’s Limehouse address, the “Gang of Four” made their declaration of a new Council for Social Democracy.
In its statement, it stated its intention to “rally all those who are committed to the values, principles and policies of social democracy.” Opposing the “extremism” of Labour, it served as a call to arms to all those gloomy at Labour’s fortunes, concluding: “We recognise that for those people who have given much of their lives to the Labour Party, the choice that lies ahead will be deeply painful. But we believe that the need for a realignment of British politics must now be faced.”
Though Williams, Rodgers, and Owen had already been known as the “Gang of Three”, it marked the return of Roy Jenkins to British politics after serving as President of the European Commission. Williams had been out of Parliament after losing her seat at the last election.
In late March, the party officially launched in what was described as “the first major political birth in Britain since the Labour Party in 1900.” After thinking over several names, including New Labour, they eventually settled on the Social Democratic Party because, as Owen noted: “that was part of the European continental tradition.”
While Owen, and debatably Jenkins, seemed keen to leave, opinion was split as Williams compared leaving to pulling out her teeth one by one while Rodgers mused “how could I break with [Labour] without weeping forever?” Nonetheless, the party were all smiles – and they had good reason to be.
The Annus Mirabilis: A New Age?
Roy Jenkins described 1981 as the party’s annus mirabilis (‘miracle year’) and one would struggle to argue.
The politicians involved had been popular, with a poll the previous year showing support for the original “Gang of Three” at 62% support from Labour members against 24% for Benn and Heffer, with 58% seeing an election win less likely under the influence of the left-wing.
Shortly after their formation, support flooded in, with The Guardian publishing a list of 100 names throwing their weight behind the new party. Signatories included professors, writers, and business figures. Politically, the big figure was Lord George-Brown, the former Labour Deputy Leader and thus Deputy Prime Minister. Former Cabinet Ministers Jack Diamond, Kenneth Robinson, and Edmund Dell were also listed, as was Lord Young (the man responsible for writing the 1945 Labour Party manifesto who later helped found Which? and the Open University). Also a supporter was Harold Wilson’s eldest son.
In all, over 80,000 people would become party members.
On the day of the SDP’s launch in March, 10 fellow Labour MPs joined the party. This denoted the largest party switch since the split of the Liberal Party in 1886. During the fallout of a controversial Thatcherite budget, the Conservative MP Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler crossed the benches, to be followed by a trickle of well over a dozen MPs throughout the year. In October alone, six MPs joined the SDP.
Another key moment in the early SDP was forging an electoral pact with the Liberal Party. In a majoritarian two-party system famous for shutting out third parties, this alliance was seen as an absolute necessity to have any chance of success. The Liberal Party had struggled for success in post-war Britain and the ‘talk of the town’ SDP seemingly able to revitalise the long-suffering party. Yet Liberal leader David Steel made it clear it clear that compromise did not mean one-sided SDP dominance, remarking to Liberal activists: “we were out in the cold and rough while they were fighting losing battles in their according Cabinet posts within their own party.”
In their first by-election, the SDP-Liberal Alliance would challenge for the Labour stronghold of Warrington. Although a poll in The Sun found Shirley Williams would win 55% of the vote, she did not stand, with Roy Jenkins running instead. Despite his status, he would lose. That said, Jenkins saw it as a victory, noting that though it was his first defeat in an election in 30 years, it was the “greatest victory in which I have ever participated” as it showed the bright future for the party. Indeed, a Labour majority of over 10,000 was slashed to just 1,700. The Sun still stated that Jenkins proved a “New Age of Politics is Dawning in Britain.”
In their next outing, they emerged victorious with the Croydon North West seat won by the Liberal candidate after the SDP stood aside as part of the agreement. The Liberals had tripled their vote and won on a 24% swing.
In November the party had their greatest electoral triumph when Shirley Williams returned to Parliament. In 1979, she had lost her seat but was returned easily to the Crosby seat. She was able to overturn an eye-watering 19,272-strong majority from the last election, winning nearly 50% of the vote in a seat where the previous election the Tories emerged victorious by over 31%. A victorious Williams decreed: “This is not for us a party but a crusade, an attempt to find a democratic alternative to what we believe to be the growing extremism of politics in Britain … We are making a new beginning for Britain, a new vision for Britain in the world.”
In its three by-elections, the party each time won over 40% of the vote, even in a Labour and a Conservative stronghold.
The journalist Ian Bradley cited a number of SDP strengths including “the transition from an industrial to a service economy, the breakdown of traditional class loyalties, the rising protest against corporatism, centralisation and bureaucracy, the growing national mood of self-doubt and demoralisation.”
One groundbreaking December poll had the SDP-Liberal Alliance standing at over 50% approval. 27% above the dwindling prospects of both the wayward Conservatives and volatile Labour.
Such made sense given the economic, social, and political problems facing the nation.
Over three million people in Britain were unemployed in the worst figures since the Great Depression and Britain was in a recession with inflation still over 10%. Socially, racially-charged riots occurred in several major cities across the country and the long-running Irish Troubles were still in full throttle. Britain felt like a Ken Loach film, with The Specials’s “Ghost Town” indicative of the breakdown of Britain during this tenure.
Meanwhile, the Conservative Party and Labour Party had never been so far apart in modern history. While the Tories had broken the post-war consensus and drifted to right with a focus on neoliberal philosophy and deregulated free-markets, Labour had retreated to radicalism favouring unilateral disarmament, opposing the European Community, and becoming increasingly dominated by trade unions and Militants.
Against this divided backdrop, both sides realised the clear ideological blackhole the party could fill. In his autobiography, future Conservative grandee Ken Clarke noted that the SDP became “instantly popular as an acceptable alternative to the stern Thatcher government on one hand and the extreme-left Opposition on the other” while the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror ended the year noting the year had been blotted by “the cracks in the Labour Party and the crackpot ideas of Mrs Thatcher’s team.”
Indeed, Thatcher had polled some of the lowest approval ratings of any prime minister and had a –40 favourability rating (compared to Liberal leader David Steel’s +40, say) while Michael Foot suffered some of the most savage press coverage in political history and has been described by the great Dominic Sandbrook as “ludicrously ill-suited to leadership.”
By the year’s end, both Labour and the Conservatives were in a panic – no matter how much they put on a brave face in public.
For example, Norman Tebbit recalled the fear of dozens of anti-Thatcher Tories defecting to the party whereas released government files from 1981 reveal the Tories fear that the SDP “threatens to sweep the Conservative Party into a small minority position, worse than anything we have experienced for over 100 years.” Projections of the time showed that an election would produce an SDP-Liberal Party wielding an unprecedented 500 seats in Parliament.
In Labour, the right shrieked as the left caused continuing internal divisions, with figures like Tony Benn “destroying the Labour Party” in the words of outspoken backbench MP Leo Abse. Even the left were becoming edgy, with the socialist Eric Heffer reflecting on Michael Foot’s leadership by lamenting: “What fools we were not to vote for Denis [Healey].”
In his diary, Roy Jenkins wrote that perhaps this new outfit might finally mean he could become prime minister. In a now more infamous moment, David Steel, whose party only barely scraped into the two figures, told the 1981 Liberal conference to “Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government!”
1982: Deflation and Pop
By early 1982, the SDP’s lead in the opinion poll had shrunk significantly. This was partly natural, after all, support for the SDP was not necessarily due to the personalities or the politics of the party but dissatisfaction at the two large parties.
A final victory before the SDP bubble popped would take place in March when Roy Jenkins won a by-election for the Glasgow Hillhead seat. At the time, the win provided a much-needed boost for the party, with the Conservative budget boosting Tory popularity with Chancellor Geoffrey Howe noting the economy was “moving in the right direction” while by-election polls showed a likely Labour win. Instead, despite the campaigning efforts of Benn and Foot for Labour and Ted Heath and Howe for the Conservatives, Jenkins emerged head held high. Time noted: “The endless street work, the grace under catcalls and the sore hands had not only won the day, but might, in the future, prove a deciding factor in Britain’s political fortunes.”
The win would influence the July leadership race in which Jenkins beat out Owen to become SDP head, whereas Williams would become SDP President.
Shortly after this win however, the whole political sphere would flip on its head.
By early-mid 1981, the Conservatives shot up to the 40% in the polls due to one word: Falklands.
In April, Argentine forces took over the British-owned Falkland Islands. The ‘rally around the flag’ effect helped the Conservatives bolster and caused the SDP to plummet and Labour to stagnate. In June, Argentina surrendered, at which point any SDP hopes of getting into government shattered into a million pieces.
Thatcher’s decisive action had paid off and saved her politically. This boom of nationalism was immense, and the backing of Foot and the SDP meant Thatcher was seen as a cultural hero who had support even from opposition parties. In July, the polling golf had widened with Conservatives sailing about 20 points above the SDP and 15 above Labour.
Perhaps this singular event had ended any SDP prospect of forming a government and just served to debilitate Labour, with Howe noting that: “The continuing strength of the Alliance alongside the shortcomings of a Foot-led, Militant-dominated Labour Party buttressed the still continuing Falklands factor.”
It would take about a year for the Alliance to celebrate again when winning the Bermondsey by-election in February 1983. The largest swing in by-election history at 44.2%, the Liberals won on over 50% of the vote in one of Labour’s safest seats in a constituency in which the Tories were practically non-existent. The campaign has become infamous for its ferocity, including targeting the homosexuality of far-left Labour candidate Peter Tatchell.
1983 Election Results: The Mould Remains Unbroken
In June 1983, voters went to the polls for their first general election verdict on the SDP in an election which seemed likely to produce a Conservative landslide.
When the results came in, it was clear Mrs Thatcher would serve a second term, growing her majority to just one seat short of that of Clement Attlee in 1945. Although devastatingly crushed, Labour came second proving how the Alliance had failed to crack the rigid two-party hegemonic system (even if Gallup polling put just 9% saying Michael Foot was a good party leader).
The Conservatives won nearly 400 seats on 42.4% of the vote whilst Labour won a post-war nadir of just 209 seats on 27.6%, just over half of those won by the government and less than a third of all MPs.
1983 is a prime example of how the majoritarian first-past-the-post voting system disadvantages third parties.
The Alliance won just 2% less (less than 680,000 votes) less than Labour but won just 23 seats to Labour’s 209. Thus, although they won over 25% of votes (the most of any third party since the 1920s), they won just 3.5% of the seats.
The party were successful in taking four of their 10 target seats but elsewhere failed to gain much of any traction.
Some of the most disappointing results occurred in Crosby, where Shirley Williams lost her seat after her remarkable 1981 by-election win, and Stockton North, where Bill Rodgers lost his seat of 21 years and finished third with less than 30% of the vote.
Of the 23 MPs, just six were from the SDP. They previously had 29.
On top of Jenkins and Owen were Robert Maclennan, Ian Wrigglesworth, John Cartwright, and – most notably – Charles Kennedy, who will be covered later and was the Baby of the House at just 23 when elected.
The SDP’s greatest contribution was not its own success but its hindrance of the Labour Party.
Although the Conservative vote share fell, the SDP’s eating into the Labour vote allowed a massive Tory victory which left Labour in its worst state since 1935 and worst vote per candidate tally in history. Denis Healey also noted that Labour finished third in 292 constituencies.
Although the SDP may not be able to take full credit, they no doubt would have felt vindicated by Tony Benn – the socialist vanguard perhaps most responsible for tearing the party apart – losing his seat in a constituency where the SDP won over 10,000 votes.
As authors Ivor Crewe and Anthony King noted in the book SDP: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Social Democratic Party, “It is a measure of the British party system’s resilience and of the power of the first-past-the-post electoral system that the most serious challenge to the system in half a century ended in such failure, making no discernible impact.”
1983-1987: A Solidified Third
The next Parliament saw the role of the SDP predictably shrink.
Four days after the 1983 election, the more abrasive, more domineering David Owen became party leader.
Although polls in late 1985 showed the Alliance having the highest percentage over both main parties, the SDP and Liberals had largely shifted their focus by the mid-1980s from government ambitions to holding the balance of power when negotiating a potential coalition. Consistently polling at around 30%, this seemed a very real possibility for a period of time.
In 1985, David Owen noted: “perhaps when I left the Labour Party, I signed off from” becoming prime minister, emphasising his willingness to work with the winning party in a beneficial coalition if necessary (though stated he would force the Tories to change leader from Thatcher).
In terms of electoral success, they remained fairly successful, with the 1984 European Parliament – in which they won nearly 20% of the vote but no seats – an exception. In local elections, they had more than tripled their seats since 1977 and jumped from 1,900 in 1982 to 3,000 by 1986. Elsewhere, the Alliance would win four by-elections from 1983-1987, two by Liberal candidates and two SDP candidates, including a by-election in Greenwich shortly before a general election, with the SDP’s Rosie Barnes winning 53% of the vote on a 27.9% swing. A 1986 Fulham by-election marked the only time an SDP candidate was not either the runner-up or the winner.
During their joint leadership, the Davids were weakened by several factors, from some positively savage depictions in the satirical press by Spitting Image and Private Eye and disagreements on major political decisions like defence creating the image of disunity.
Despite some highly popular party political adverts featuring John Cleese explaining proportional representation and special interest groups, 1987 was no better than 1983.
The party suffered a net loss of one seat compared with the previous election.
A demoralising result, the election showed the widening gulf between Labour and the Alliance, with Labour, under the moderating Neil Kinnock, gaining 3.2% while the SDP-Liberal Alliance fell by 2.8%. The vote difference went from 680,000 in 1983 to close to 2.7 million.
Three Liberals and three SDP MPs lost their seat, with the most devastating result occurring in Glasgow Hillhead. There, SDP figurehead Roy Jenkins was unseated by Labour’s George Galloway – ironically the sort of ardent socialist Jenkins had established the SDP to try to erase.
Also defeated were by-election winner Mike Hancock and celebrity MP Sir Clement Freud (grandson of Sigmund). That said, they did gain a celebrity as Olympian and future Liberal Democrat Menzies Campbell entered Parliament for the Alliance.
Merger and Death
Shortly after the disappointing 1987 result, David Steel voiced support for an official merger between the two parties rather than a mere electoral pact. David Owen was adamantly opposed though the other “Gang of Four” members supported the motion.
The first SDP MP to voice support was Charles Kennedy.
The agreements did not go smoothly, with David Owen resigning his post in protest and one infamous press conference having to be called off last minute.
Liberal delegates voted in favour of the unification by 998-21 at their Harrogate conference and overwhelmingly backed the proposal amongst party members by 46,376-6,365. Though the SDP were less supportive, the vote still saw nearly a third vote to merge.
As noted in the documentary A Marriage Made in Portsmouth, “the marriage that many thought wouldn’t last beyond the wedding vows now seems to have a rather more assured future ahead of them.”
Indeed, the Liberal Democrats would have a successful tenure lasting to the present day. In 1997, they smashed their previous SDP record and became the most successful third party since 1923 – a record they themselves would break in 2001, 2005, and 2024.
The “Continuing SDP”, comprised of anti-merger Social Democrats, remained active for a few years, polling second in the 1989 Richmond by-election. The split in the centre vote by the SDP and Liberals enabled a Conservative victory, notable for allowing future Tory leader William Hague to enter Parliament for the first time.
After however, their momentum was sapped. In the 1989 local elections, the SDP lost 22 of its 34 seats. The nadir was the 1990 Bootle by-election in which SDP leader Jack Holmes won just 155 votes, losing in humiliating fashion to the Monster Raving Loony Party’s Screaming Lord Sutch.
On June 4th at 5:15, the SDP voted by 17-5 to suspend the party’s constitution.
The three remaining Continuing SDP members would be wiped out in 1992 when John Cartwright and Rosie Barnes both lost their seats while Owen stood down. Aside from them, the SDP ran just eight candidates, winning 6,649 votes across the country.
In a decade, the SDP had folded, dying with a whimper though the impacts of the merger are still felt today.
Why The SDP Failed
The two most obvious factors preventing the party from breaking the mould as intended are the electoral system and the Falklands War. Yet there are less obvious factors.
For example, the party lacked a stable political base. The Labour Party represented the industrial worker and had long-established strongholds in the north (like Liverpool, Leeds, and Manchester), Scotland, and Wales while the Conservatives had long been dominant in UK politics looking after vested interests and dominating in London, South West, and rural north.
With the UK political system, the lack of a focussed regional strength proved to harm the party.
Moreover, unlike both major parties, the SDP was almost devoid of ideology. Hence, while it once polled 50%, the fall off was completely natural as policies came into focus. This fragile support base could disappear by the slightest incident, as proved by the Falklands War.
Although the SDP had published the names of 100 supporters after their launch, it notably lacked much non-middle-class support. The New Society Journal noted that members left Labour due to opposition to organised labour that had “superficial resemblances to that of the Tories” and the lack of trade union support reflected that. As one commentator observed, it seemed like you had to be an “’actress, rabbi, historian, company director, ageing egotist, failed politician or biographer of Gaitskell’ to join the Social Democrats.”
In 1983, no major newspaper gave the SDP a great deal of support, with the majority backing the Tories while The Daily Mirror remained pro-Labour. Even the more moderate Guardian gave a less than convincing endorsement despite the SDP-backing couple of Peter Jenkins and Polly Toynbee (one of four Guardian writers who stood as an SDP candidate) writing for the paper. Even former Liberal leader Jo Grimond was a critic of the party in a number of columns for The Spectator.
In addition, they had far less big name defectors as the “Gang of Four” desired. Although famous faces themselves and having over 20 defecting members, the party had originally written up the names of about 80 members they wished to join the movement from the rising pro-Europe star John Smith to more solidified figures like Shadow Home Secretary Roy Hattersley.
Instead, the Labour defectors were mainly no-name MPs without any frontbench experience.
The main Labour right-winger Deputy Labour Leader Denis Healey stayed put noting “I believe the Labour Party is the only base on which we can produce the sort of Britain I want.” Other moderates who remained loyal include Gerald Kaufman who called the Labour Party’s 1983 manifesto “the longest suicide note in history” and Roy Hattersley who in his autobiography commented that the SDP “dressed up self-interest to look like principle.”
As Michael Foot stated many years later: “if key right wingers including John Smith had gone to the SDP, then the party would have been bust. I did everything that I possibly could to keep those people in the party: John Smith, Denis Healey, Roy Hattersley and Neil Kinnock. Without them, the party would never have been in power today.”
Additionally, only one Tory MP ever joined the SDP despite fears of a wider revolt. John Campbell notes that Jenkins courted Conservative ‘wets’ like Ian Gilmour to little success.
Ironically too, the very Deputy Leadership contest which aided the SDP in 1981 was also a curse. In it, Tony Benn challenged Denis Healey for the position. In a win for the moderates, Healey defeated Benn, marking the start of the more extremist Benn’s disappearance. Forced out of the Shadow Cabinet, labelled a Nazi by both Hattersley on the Labour right and Peter Shore on the Labour left, and called an embarrassment to the left by his wife, it marked the wane of the extremist left (with Benn losing his seat in 1983). Although the SDP would despise Benn as Deputy Leader, the image of an increasingly radical, extreme, unelectable Labour Party would certainly help the Social Democratic cause – but Healey’s victory robbed them of that.
Plus, 1983 was, in the words of Roger Eatwell, served as a wake-up call for Labour, with its result “the final nail in the left’s coffin in terms of influence within the party’s higher echelons.”
From 1983-1987, the SDP coincided with Neil Kinnock trying to modernise the Labour Party. He fought off the Militants, softened its stance on Europe, and focussed on universal themes like economic growth. These moderate policies seemed like the political philosophy of the SDP, with a move to the centre that would help push out the SDP as a viable entity.
David Owen noted: “I think as the Labour Party started to reform it became inevitable that the SDP would not be able to survive as a separate party.”
Epilogue
To conclude, the SDP would fail – despite the brief indication otherwise – in its quest to “break the mould” of British politics. The party struggled electorally and the two-party hegemony continued but perhaps their greatest win was the victory of ideas.
Indeed, in the face of the SDP-Liberal Alliance threat, the Labour Party under Neil Kinnock began to moderate the party, moving it closer to the centre. This move may have negated the Alliance’s threat but would mean that Labour replicated the SDP stance on defense, nationalisation, and Europe.
This process was extended by Tony Blair’s New Labour party, who modernised the Labour Party, most notably with the repeal of the entrenched socialist Clause IV and embracing a dynamic, free-market economy focussed on de-regulation and pragmatism.
Tony Blair was close with Roy Jenkins, with the latter pushing for a Lib-Lab coalition government and later despairing at what he perceived as Blair’s wasted majority.
When the SDP originally formed, Tony Benn noted that the post-war consensus meant the last 25 years had seen social democratic governments but the Conservatives and Labour alike. The Foot years can thus be seen as an outlier with the post-SDP formation Labour remaining a party of the centre and centre-left. Perhaps the results of 2019 under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and subsequent 2024 result under Keir Starmer has proved that Labour should stick to the SDP philosophy in order to obtain success.
This is all having still not referenced the Liberal Democrats, born out of the SDP, who remain the third biggest party in Parliament and served as an instrumental voice on several issues from Iraq to same-sex marriage to Britain post-Brexit.
As such, while it may have failed in the short-term, in the end, the SDP was perhaps actually more successful than it ever could have imagined.
GRIFFIN KAYE.