The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was a centre to centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. The party supported a mixed economy (favouring a system inspired by the German social market economy), electoral reform, European integration and a decentralised state while rejecting the possibility of trade unions being overly influential within industrial relations. The SDP officially advocated social democracy, and unofficially for social liberalism as well.
The SDP was founded on 26 March 1981 by four senior Labour Party moderates, dubbed the "Gang of Four": Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, and Shirley Williams, who issued the Limehouse Declaration. Owen and Rodgers were sitting Labour Members of Parliament (MPs); Jenkins had left Parliament in 1977 to serve as President of the European Commission, while Williams had lost her seat in the 1979 general election. All four had held cabinet experience in the 1970s before Labour lost power in 1979. The four left the Labour Party as a result of the January 1981 Wembley conference, which committed the party to unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from the European Economic Community. They also believed that Labour had become too left-wing, and had been infiltrated at the constituency party level by the Trotskyist Militant tendency, whose views and behaviour they considered to be at odds with the Parliamentary Labour Party and Labour voters.
Shortly after its formation, the SDP formed a political and electoral alliance with the Liberal Party, the SDP–Liberal Alliance, which lasted through the 1983 and 1987 general elections. In 1988, the two parties merged, forming the Social and Liberal Democrats, later renamed the Liberal Democrats, although a minority, led by Owen, left to form a continuing SDP.
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.
In some areas, followers of 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 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 win their seats as independents.
March 1973 Lincoln by-election
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. 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 candidate, 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.)
On 25 January 1981, leading figures from the Labour Party (Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers, known collectively as the "Gang of Four") launched the Council for Social Democracy, after outlining their policies in what became known as the Limehouse Declaration. In March it was renamed the Social Democratic Party. The "Gang of Four" were centrists, who defected from the Labour Party due to what they perceived to be the outsized influence of Militant and the "hard left" within the party.
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. Former Labour Party deputy leader, George Brown also announced his membership of the Council for Social Democracy.
Possible names for the party included ones similar to Labour, such as "Democratic Labour", "Progressive Labour" and "New Labour". Other, simpler names like "Democratic", "Radical", "Progressive" and "Centre" were also all mentioned as possible names for the new party. However, eventually a consensus emerged for the "Social Democratic" name as it helped to distinguish the party from Labour, and had been widely used to refer to the group in the media.
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).
Twenty-eight Labour MPs eventually joined the new party, along with one Conservative MP, Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler of North West Norfolk, who joined on 16 March 1981. Williams and Jenkins were not at the time Members of Parliament, but were elected to the House of Commons at by-elections in Crosby in 1981 and Glasgow Hillhead in 1982 respectively.
The defecting Labour MPs were:
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". They were:
Herbert Bowden, Baron Aylestone
John Harris, Baron Harris of Greenwich
Elaine Burton, Baroness Burton of Coventry