Written by Richard Ward, Archives Officer
As the 1980s dawned British governance was at a crossroads. Following on from the previous turbulent decade both the Conservative and Labour default mode was to attack regardless of the consequences. Frequently engaging themselves in bitter public disagreements casting aside the principles of consensus that defined the post-war political landscape.
A middle way was required to challenge the big two’s monopoly. Step forward the Social Democratic Party (SDP) led by a supergroup of proudly moderate politicians seeking to deliver a viable ballot box alternative.
In this blog I’ll assess how this ambitious third force hoped to achieve the ultimate takeover.
EURO VISION
Watching Labour’s late seventies implosion from the vantage point of Brussels was former cabinet minister Roy Jenkins. He’d exited stage left in 1977 to become President of the European Commission on a four-year term. His frustrations with the party had been evident since the European Community Referendum held two years before, when he vigorously campaigned to stay in the Common Market somewhat defying the party line. Though absence didn’t totally make his heart grow fonder, he confided to close associates like fellow Europhile Dick Taverne a pining for Parliamentary high-jinx and a new-found appreciation of its lack of bureaucratic red tape.
After hitting the ministerial heights in Harold Wilson’s sixties administration as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, many commentators expected Jenkins to divert to directorships once his Belgian tenure concluded. Jenkins thought differently and in 1979 used the BBC’s Dimbleby Lecture to plead a case to re-establish centre ground politics. Utilizing the year’s election results as a debate template he addressed the ‘missing voters’ problem and explained the benefits of a coalition governmental structure to solve the lack of adaptability within the present framework. ‘I’d let the genie out of the bottle’ was Jenkin’s diary assessment of the day.
Read Roy Jenkins' speech on the European Economic Community
FOUR OF A KIND
Labour’s disarray favoured its militant factions orchestrated by Tony Benn intent on enforcing a socialist agenda and an organizational structure bolstering the Trade Unions powerbase. Michael Foot’s appointment as party leader in 1980 defeating the centrist choice Denis Healey was a ‘sliding doors’ moment for the already mutinous David Owen and Bill Rodgers. Alongside the like-minded Shirley Williams they published a page-length notice in The Guardian making similar pronouncements to those previously uttered by Jenkins. Benn and his acolytes mischievously nicknamed the breakaway trio the ‘Gang of Three’ and the intrigue was amped up further by Jenkins declaring an interest.
Not exactly perfect bedfellows, nevertheless Owen and Jenkins sensed the momentum was there to launch a brand-new party as dissatisfaction with Conservative and Labour transgressions reached unprecedented levels. Freed from continental commitments Jenkins agreed to join the others as a co-founder of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) a name chosen ahead of his own suggestion of New Labour. In January 1981 the foursome made a highly publicized joint statement outside Owen’s East London home later grandiosely dubbed ‘The Limehouse Declaration’. Stressing on broad terms a ‘need for political realignment’ with an obligation to create ‘an open, classless and equal society’.
Read Bill Rodgers' first major speech as an SDP MP
NEW ORDER
Image was paramount in this period and the SDP understood the importance of presenting a modern outlook. A fruitful fundraising drive raised eyebrows for taking telephone credit card payments. Mail-order merchandise adorned with a distinctive red, white and blue logo provided a steady stream of income. Still not everyone was singing from the SDP hymn sheet and satirists compared its party-political broadcasts to a Jackanory episode. The innovative concept of a touring party conference drew the requisite media attention, but certain sections of the press couldn’t resist reporting the breaking down of a specially commissioned SDP train in rural Oxfordshire.
While the computerized Gallup polls highlighted the SDP as a recognised third force, its leaders knew the litmus test would be a by-election. In the autumn of 1981, the death of Crosby’s incumbent MP presented the opportunity to measure the SDP’s credentials and give Shirley Williams a seat in the Commons. Facing a solid Conservative majority, she meant business famously playing the Chariots of Fire soundtrack to add a little gravitas to her stage introductions. A notable party highpoint, Williams achieved the biggest reversal in by-election history, a credit to her willingness to take a risk and not play safe.
Read Shirley Williams' second ‘Maiden Address’
ELECTION PAINS
Celebrity endorsements can be a mixture of blessing and curse with the SDP attracting support from showbiz luminaries such as Sir Richard Attenborough and John Cleese in the build-up to the 1983 General Election. At this juncture twenty-nine MPs had defected from the big two parties to the SDP corner on the chamber benches. Significantly Roy Jenkins brokered a long-awaited deal with David Steel to formally announce a unified Liberal Alliance. The Liberal negotiating hand had been strengthened by a shock win in the controversial February 1983 Bermondsey by-election rocked by the tabloids’ homophobic treatment of Labour candidate Peter Tatchell.
SDP election pledges included the rather novel idea of a constitutional Bill of Rights. Yet the Conservatives had regained the voters’ trust helped by the successful outcome of the 1982 Falklands Crisis. Hopes now rested on securing second place as a Labour freefall seemed inevitable. In the event the SDP/Alliance managed a very respectable 25.4% of the vote share. Less positive was a polling casualty list leaving just six SDP MPs in Parliament and terminating the Commons careers of Williams and Rodgers. A deflated David Owen found himself on the TV AM sofa the next morning calling for electoral reforms.
Read David Steel’s views on Electoral Reform
TO MERGE OR NOT TO MERGE
Post-election post-mortems are usually ruthless and David Owen in the 1983 fallout seized the reins, relegating Roy Jenkins to a background role. In the Liberal half of the Alliance David Steel proposed a complete merger of the parties for the greater good. Owen unlike Jenkins believed in co-operation with the Liberals not integration. He shifted the overall SDP ethos towards more Conservative leaning free market strategies and a nuclear deterrent stance mirroring Margaret Thatcher’s worldview. Buoyed by recent local government successes and a £1m war chest Owen went into the 1987 General Election determined to prove his numerous detractors wrong.
Despite forecasts of accumulating fifty seats the reality was a fraction of the speculative prediction. Television cameras captured a crestfallen Roy Jenkins losing his Glasgow Hillhead seat to Labour’s George Galloway. In the aftermath David Steel and Shirley Williams cut ties with Owen whose refusal to budge on the merger showed no sign of abating. Backed by a small band of SDP ultras Owen decided to go solo. The acrimony and horse trading provoked a fair degree of mirth from sceptical journalists especially regarding the Liberal Alliance’s name change that briefly saw a consideration for Liberal Social Democrats aka LSD.
Read David Owen’s contributions to the Gulf War Debate
BOOTLE ENDING
If Crosby 1981 was a Merseyside by-election awakening for the SDP, then Bootle 1990 can be described as its Merseyside by-election death knell. An SDP rebranding at the decade’s end failed to reach a fresh audience however the ever-indomitable Owen kept on talking a good game as Neil Kinnock’s Labour faltered and cracks began to show in Thatcher’s premiership. What happened in Bootle changed the narrative as the SDP hit an all-time low receiving fewer votes than Lord Sutch, the Monster Raving Loony Party’s cult figurehead. Sutch quipped that he was willing to form a partnership with the beleaguered Owen.
Sensibly Owen soon realised there would be no third Act in the SDP story and pulled the curtain on proceedings. The subsequent ‘obituaries’ evaluated the ‘Gang of Four’ as admirable idealists up against an unbeatable ‘first past the post’ system. Owen resigned as an MP prior to the 1992 General Election and in the mid-nineties Balkan Wars worked as a European Community negotiator. Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams accepted Life Peerages, and the latter was Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. A renaissance man of sorts Roy Jenkins’ 2001 biography of Winston Churchill topped the best-sellers list.
Read Roy Jenkins' debate on House of Lords Reform
SOURCES
SDP: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party by Ivor Crewe
Rejoice, Rejoice – Britain in the 1980s by Alwyn Turner.
Bang: A History of Britain in the 1980s by Graham Stewart
Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life by John Campbell
BBC 1987 General Election coverage
Roy Jenkins: A Very Social Democrat (BBC)
Hansard Parliamentary Debates
Times Digital Archive
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