The SDP–Liberal Alliance was a
centrist
Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the l ...
and
social liberal
Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and
electoral alliance
An electoral alliance (also known as a bipartisan electoral agreement, electoral pact, electoral agreement, electoral coalition or electoral bloc) is an association of political party, political parties or individuals that exists solely to stand ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
.
Formed by the
Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Fo ...
(SDP) and the
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
, the SDP–Liberal Alliance was established in 1981, contesting the
1982 United Kingdom local elections,
1983 United Kingdom local elections
Local elections were held in the United Kingdom in 1983. The results were a success for Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who soon afterwards called a general election in ...
,
1983 general election,
1984 United Kingdom local elections
Local elections were held in the United Kingdom in 1984. There was a slight reversal in the Conservative government's fortunes, but the party remained ahead. The projected share of the vote was Conservatives 38%, Labour 37%, Liberal-SDP Alliance ...
,
1984 European election,
1985 United Kingdom local elections
Local elections were held in the United Kingdom in 1985. The projected share of the vote was Labour 39%, Conservative 32%, Liberal-SDP Alliance 26%. Labour had the largest share of the vote in local council elections for the first time since 198 ...
,
1986 United Kingdom local elections,
1987 United Kingdom local elections
Local elections were held in the United Kingdom in 1987. The projected share of the vote was Conservatives 38%, Labour 32%, Liberal-SDP Alliance 27%. It was the first time since 1983 that the Conservatives had enjoyed the largest share of the vot ...
and
1987 general election.
The SDP–Liberal Alliance ceased to exist in 1988, when the two component parties merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, under which label they stood in the
1988 United Kingdom local elections
Local elections were held in the United Kingdom in 1988. The Conservative government held its ground and remained ahead in the projected popular vote.
The election resulted in the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party winning 39% of the po ...
, later renamed the
Liberal Democrats.
History
Following the establishment of the
Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
Fo ...
(SDP) by the '
Gang of Four' (
Roy Jenkins,
David Owen
David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, (born 2 July 1938) is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party (UK), Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 t ...
,
Bill Rodgers,
Shirley Williams
Shirley Vivian Teresa Brittain Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, (' Catlin; 27 July 1930 – 12 April 2021) was a British politician and academic. Originally a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), she served in the Labour cabinet from ...
), who had left the
Labour Party in March 1981, the SDP entered into an informal alliance with the
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
, led by
David Steel
David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood, (born 31 March 1938) is a British politician. Elected as Member of Parliament for Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, followed by Tweeddale, Ettrick, and Lauderdale, he served as the final leade ...
. The SDP fought its first
by-election, in Warrington, with future leader
Roy Jenkins standing as "SDP with Liberal support".
On 16 June 1981, this arrangement was formalised into an alliance, with both parties agreeing to stand down in each other's favour and govern as a
coalition government
A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...
if the two parties ever won enough seats between them for a majority. Between 1981 and 1983, the parties together won seats in by-elections in:
*
Croydon North West (
Bill Pitt, a Liberal),
*
Crosby Crosby may refer to:
Places
;Canada
*Crosby, Ontario, part of the township of Rideau Lakes, Ontario
*Crosby, Ontario, a neighbourhood in the city of Markham, Ontario
;England
*Crosby, Cumbria
*Crosby, Lincolnshire
*Crosby, Merseyside
** Crosby (U ...
(
Shirley Williams
Shirley Vivian Teresa Brittain Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, (' Catlin; 27 July 1930 – 12 April 2021) was a British politician and academic. Originally a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), she served in the Labour cabinet from ...
of the SDP),
*
Glasgow Hillhead (Roy Jenkins of the SDP), and
*
Bermondsey
Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham, a ...
(
Simon Hughes
Sir Simon Henry Ward Hughes (born 17 May 1951) is a former British politician. He is now the Chancellor of London South Bank University, an External Adviser to The Open University, and UK Strategic Adviser to Talgo. Hughes was Deputy Leader ...
of the Liberals, with the largest swing ever recorded in any British election).
The formation of the SDP and the subsequent alliance came at a time when the British economy was in a deep recession and
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
's Conservative government was proving unpopular; since coming to power in May 1979, unemployment had risen from over 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 and beyond by 1982, due to the closure of many formerly state-subsidised factories. In 1981, there were riots in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
's
Brixton
Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...
,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
's
Handsworth,
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
'
Chapeltown,
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
's
Toxteth
Toxteth is an inner-city area of Liverpool in the historic county of Lancashire and the ceremonial county of Merseyside.
Toxteth is located to the south of Liverpool city centre, bordered by Aigburth, Canning, Dingle, and Edge Hill.
The area w ...
and
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
's
Moss Side
Moss Side is an Inner city, inner-city area of Manchester, England, south of the Manchester city centre, city centre, It had a population of 20,745 at the United Kingdom Census 2021, 2021 census. Moss Side is bounded by Hulme to the north, Cho ...
.
Meanwhile, Labour had shifted dramatically to the left since the election in 1980 of
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
as party leader. As much distaste as some voters had for Thatcher's Conservative government, many people were just as opposed to the prospect of Foot as Prime Minister. Many also viewed
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. ...
negatively. Having moved over to the
hard left
In the United Kingdom, the hard left are the left-wing political movements and ideas outside the mainstream centre-left.*
*
Term
The term was first used in the context of debates within both the Labour Party and the broader left in the 1980 ...
, he had been given the position of Shadow Minister without Portfolio which freed him up from formal ministerial obligations while still affording him high status. His public appearances at events organised by
Militant
The English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously active, combative and/or aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers". It comes from the 15th century Latin " ...
, a
far-left
Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars consider ...
entryist group, alienated key Labour figures.
With an election not due until May 1984, the Alliance proved to be an instant hit with voters who were disgruntled with the Conservatives and Labour, as many opinion polls in late 1981 and early 1982 showed the Alliance leading opinion polling by a wide margin, peaking with a 50% showing – up to twice the level of support shown for the Conservatives around this time. Steel was so certain that the Liberals would be part of a government for the first time in over half a century that when he addressed the 1981 Liberal Party conference, he famously declared, "Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government!"
However, a series of events followed which saw the political tables turn.
Argentine
Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
forces invaded the
British dependent territory
The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...
of the
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...
on 2 April 1982. A Security Council Resolution 502 was passed the next day demanding an immediate Argentine withdrawal, which was ignored, so Thatcher sent out a task force to recapture the islands—by military means, if necessary. The UK won the conflict on 14 June, and subsequent opinion polls showed the Conservatives firmly in the lead. With a general election due by May 1984, it seemed that the most anticipated outcome would be whether the Alliance or Labour formed the next opposition. A Conservative re-election was looking even more likely as 1982 drew to a close, as the recession came to an end and inflation had been cut to 4% from a massive 27% within four years, although unemployment remained above 3,000,000. She felt confident enough to hold an election in June 1983 – a year earlier than necessary.
The Alliance exploited the nation's mass unemployment in the run-up to the election, running a "Working Together for Britain" campaign which it promised would see unemployment reduced by up to 1,000,000.
1983 general election and aftermath
The Alliance won 25.4% of the national vote in the
1983 general election, compared to Labour's 27.6%. However, a mere 23 Alliance
Members of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MPs) were elected, compared to Labour's 209. The SDP came second in many constituencies, including nearly 70% of the Conservative-won seats, though the bulk of Labour's defectors to the SDP in 1981 lost their seats. Due to the
first past the post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...
electoral system, this success did not translate into parliamentary seats. The SDP's support was spread out across the country, and was not concentrated in enough areas to win more seats. The split in the centre-left vote is claimed to have helped the Conservatives to win the election by a landslide.
Both the SDP and the Liberals were committed to
proportional representation
Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...
, under which system they would have elected more MPs to the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
.
The Alliance came under heavy criticism from Foot in the aftermath of the 1983 election; he condemned them for "siphoning" support away from the Labour Party and enabling the Conservatives to win more seats.
The 1983 election had given the Conservatives a triple-digit majority, but within months a strong challenge to their power – and to the challenge posed by the Alliance – was showing as Foot stood down in favour of
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
, who immediately reversed the party's hard-left turn. This resulted in a dramatic rise in Labour fortunes in the opinion polls – some of which showed them ahead of the Conservatives and the Alliance by March 1984. However, at least one opinion poll showed the Alliance ahead of the Conservatives and Labour as late as September 1985. By this stage, the recession had ended three years earlier and the battle against inflation had clearly been won; however unemployment – seen as a major factor in a string of
inner city riots that autumn – was still above 3,000,000. With the economy further improving over the next 18 months and unemployment finally starting to fall, however, Thatcher felt confident to call a general election for 11 June 1987 – although the deadline for the election was 12 months later.
1987 general election and aftermath
The Alliance failed to maintain momentum. In the
1987 general election, each party's vote share fell slightly; the Liberals won 17 seats (the same as in 1983), while the SDP won five (one fewer than four years previously), while Labour were firmly established as Britain's second
major political party with a much stronger showing than in 1983, although the Conservatives still achieved a third successive election win with Thatcher still at the helm.
1988 merger
By 1987, relations had become fraught. Despite this, Steel proposed a merger of the two parties following the 1987 general election. The majority of members of both parties agreed, and a merger was effected early in 1988. The new party was named the Social and Liberal Democrats, shortened in October 1989 to the
Liberal Democrats.
Remaining factions
Small factions of both parties continued under the names of the SDP and the Liberal Party but, as each was made up of those members who least trusted the other party, there was no chance that the two 'continuing' parties would co-operate.
The
SDP was re-established under the leadership of one of the founders of the SDP,
David Owen
David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, (born 2 July 1938) is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party (UK), Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 t ...
, who had objected to the merger of the two parties. Owen and the party's national executive dissolved the party in 1990, but another group of party members continue the party under
the SDP name.
The
Liberal Party was re-established under the leadership of
Michael Meadowcroft
Michael James Meadowcroft (born 6 March 1942) is a British author, politician and political affairs consultant. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds West from 1983 to 1987.
Early life
Meadowcroft was born in Halifax, West Yorks ...
and continues to operate. However, many members of this continuity party, including Meadowcroft himself, have since joined the mainstream Liberal Democrats.
General election results
See also
*
List of UK Liberal Party general election manifestos
*
Lib–Lab pact In British politics, a Lib–Lab pact is a working arrangement between the Liberal Democrats (in previous times, the Liberal Party) and the Labour Party.
There have been four such arrangements, and one alleged proposal, at the national level. In ...
*
Liberal Democrat Green Alliance
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:SDP-Liberal Alliance
1981 in British politics
1981 establishments in the United Kingdom
Defunct political party alliances in the United Kingdom
History of the Liberal Democrats (UK)
Liberal Party (UK)
Social Democratic Party (UK)
1988 disestablishments in the United Kingdom