Few people under the age of 50 will have heard of the SDP. Those over that age will probably have forgotten the Social Democrats or, if they do recall the party at all, will assume they disappeared nearly four decades ago after a series of splits and a cycle of rapid electoral decline.
The original iteration of the SDP was launched in a blaze of excitement in 1981 when a series of leading Labour figures including a couple of dozen MPs sought to “break the mould” of British politics, setting up a brand new party in direct competition with Labour (which was going through one of its periodic bouts of veering towards the lunatic Left). Its star shone brightly for a while – a series of spectacular by-election results and national poll figures that amazingly once exceeded 50% of the vote – but not for long.
In the 1983 election, having established a close relationship with the Liberals, the Alliance failed to achieve a breakthrough in Parliamentary seats (despite coming within a couple of points of beating Labour in vote share). In the subsequent election the Alliance fell backwards. The SDP then imploded with one faction merging with the Liberals to form the Lib Dems, another group attempting to continue as a separate party under Dr David Owen (which folded its tent in 1990) and the largest group of all simply giving up.
Today, in so far as anyone mentions the SDP at all it is usually as a cautionary tale about how the Conservative-Labour duopoly can sometimes be challenged but is nearly impossible to destroy. An interesting footnote in British electoral history, but little more than that.
However, under the radar, a small band of Social Democrats have, over the decades, just about kept the party brand alive. Since 2018 it has been led by William Clouston, an erudite, thoughtful and softly spoken man who has had some success in both building a media profile (without yet becoming a household name) and in nurturing a party infrastructure which lifts the SDP far above that of the hundreds of micro-parties which make up the bulk of the Electoral Commission’s official register.
At the last general election the SDP managed to contest around a fifth of all constituencies – not with any notable electoral success it must be said, but simply fielding that number of candidates requires a Herculean effort and is, of itself, no mean achievement. It’s most famous candidate was Rod Liddle, who stood as a parliamentary candidate in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, coming fourth.
Clouston’s approach to building the party is, from what I can tell, unique. In addition to ploughing the furrow of encouraging a swathe of his small (perhaps 2,000-strong) band of party members to get their names onto ballot papers and battle against insuperable electoral odds, the SDP also succeeds in operating as a rather impressive policy outfit.
It’s worth having a look at the publications section on their website (https://www.sdp.org.uk/). If the Social Democrats gave up on any electoral ambition, they could compete confidently on the national think tank scene. I’ve debated with William Clouston a few times (largely from the perspective that the SDP underestimates the positive power markets can play in delivering public services) and it has always been an enjoyable and intellectually stimulating experience, not a mere exchange of soundbites.
Although I am much more market-orientated than the SDP, my analysis would be that they have positioned themselves almost exactly where the median British voter sits. To be clear, this is due to genuine ideological conviction, not down to electoral expedience.
The Social Democrats want a major role for the state in owning and supplying products and services the party sees as crucial in strategic or social terms (housing, water, steel, etc). Alongside this, they take a broadly ‘socially conservative’ stance on issues around faith, family and nationhood – pro-Brexit, traditional values, proper control of borders and so on. They are also pro-business and essentially capitalist on those areas of the economy which they don’t see as being in the state domain. Overall, this is a policy agenda which could appeal to millions. One former Reform Parliamentary candidate told me recently that if the SDP was widely known across the electorate, the party would immediately take a huge slice of the current Reform UK vote.
As it is, the SDP remains in the foothills. But Clouston has decided to contest the upcoming Clacton by-election. In a bizarre field of over 30 candidates (and none of the traditional parties running), he may just get drowned out in the wider noise. But perhaps there’s a chance he could garner a reasonable vote share from those who are unattracted to Farage and see voting for Count Binface as a protest vote too far. Whether the SDP leader has the campaign resources to become a widely recognised candidate among the Clacton electorate by polling day remains to be seen – but he has some sort of chance. If you fancy a wild flutter, you can get 370/1 on the betting exchanges that Clouston will pull off an improbable victory. You can get a rather attractive 14/1 that he will come second.
It may turn out that the Clacton effort just ends up as another flag-waving exercise for the Social Democrats, resulting in amassing just a tiny cluster of votes. But my sense is that the SDP might not be too far away from breaking through to ‘recognised minor party’ status from its current public position of being ‘largely unheard of’.
Electoral history suggests that to start to register in the polls, a small party needs to have a single identifiable issue that becomes its USP and then build out from there. This has been true of the Greens, UKIP, the Brexit Party as well as the SNP and Plaid Cymru. You attract a small chunk of people – perhaps just 2 or 3% of voters – with a proposition that is perhaps a little off to the fringe but inspiring to a reasonable chunk of voters. You then start to recruit others to your banner as you broaden your pitch.
The SDP starts with an attractive and broad canvas. But it currently lacks a single specific proposition to mobilise an initial identifiable base of enthusiasts. If it can crack that problem, the party may yet emerge as some sort of electoral force. I’m scouring the markets for any sort of book that suggests they may achieve just that.
Mark Littlewood is a former director of the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Director of PopCon.
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Britain was the world’s powerhouse when we allowed private enterprises to run everything. Even our healthcare was improving in the 1930s as mutual medical societies were formed andnpaidnfor by donations and weekly payments by members. The wartime government amalgamated them all foe the emergency, and the socialists (communists in disguise) of AtTlee’s government continued the socialist disaster by creating the NHS. The mutual concept would have worked and expanded. It could be rekindled now. Experiments should be conducted with small mutual like Benenden Healthcare, being given more scope for more serious medical interventions.
The British people are, sadly, quite stupid and cannot be brought out of their stupor.
Remember Roy Jenkins, a thoroughly unpleasant and disreputable man who was responsible for much of the bad policy that Labour took on board in the 1950s and 1960s…
If the current SDP has any real connection to him then it’s best avoided.
There seems to be no limit to the imagination of journalists who want to keep Reform and Farage out off office. They write up how brilliantly Badenock is doing even as she refuses to put up a candidate in Clacton.
She says Tories won’t support Net Zero by [enter a date a few years hence] yet she forgets only five MPs opposed the Climate Change Act and it was Mrs May who legislated for Net Zero by tomorrow.
We have had the Tories help Rupert Lowe and their media friends support him and fail to criticise. But for Farage no opposition is enough.
Mark, stick with your party which I believe has been the Tories for some years. You have lost credibility.
It’s interesting that you mention journalists wanting to keep Reform and Farage out of office. I live in a house where the Daily Mail is available to flick through every day, and it rarely says anything against Reform. All its sniping in that direction is reserved for Nigel Farage alone. Is he too divisive a character to give us a Reform government? Don’t get me wrong, I think Reform would never have got as far as it has without Nigel making waves. But will his presence actually prevent Reform from taking that final step into government?
My interpretation of that is that it was equally true with the democrats in the US and their thoughts on Trump. Attack the top guy endlessly. There is a view on the left that Reform is ‘Farage Ltd’. I don’t think it is, but its easier to discredit one person and by association all those with him, than to attack the whole party.
I’m going to suggest that, while Clouston has got SDP at lest pointing in the right direction, we should ignore him as we are ignoring Rupert. For us to even have a chance of getting rid of the socialist malaise, we need one single party on the centre right. We have one already, regardless of all this, ‘well, Reform are okay but I don’t like [insert trivial differences] so I’m looking for another party that has a 90% cross over with my views, but also says {whatever the hell it is]. We have to unite behind one party. Vote for it every chance you have. Vote Reform.
Agreed
there is also a case to be made that if you want socialism it should be delivered by those fully committed and in clear form.
“Social Democrat” might be spun as friendly as LibDem used to be but it still wants socialism.
As long as you think that central planning is the best solution for lots of things, there will be many who are tempted to expand the role for central planning and go beyond that to all sorts of other ways of trying to control people to keep the revolution on track once it fails to deliver, as it inevitably will. I don’t think there are enough people who want to be politicians who could resist scope creep. Socialism has worked up to a point because they have better human capital, though they are busy addressing that particular advantage.
After a hundred years of conditioning from Socialist governments, of whatever hue, it’s really hard to convince people that’s they’d be better off without an all-encompassing State to look after them.
That’s why worship of the NHS is near enough a state religion, despite any number of baby- or granny-murdering scandals. Even though people know it’s rotten at its core, and that just about every other developed country has better healthcare outcomes, they’re still unwilling to let go of it. Any mention of change brings howls of protest from the Left, coupled with scare stories about becoming us like the US. With the tragic levels of ill health in this country (just look around you), that’s entirely understandable.
Even if there’s a financial crash or sovereign debt crisis, both highly likely, or mass civil disturbance, it will only result in more state control because the levers are already in place and ready to go.
I doubt there will be time in a first Reform government to complete a reorganisation but a start can be made. The worst abuses and waste can be tackled, management information systems can be enhanced and transparency will put accountability pressure on the lazy “leadership”.
How will they overcome the pushback from the civil service and the wider blob? That was what brought Liz Truss down, in my opinion. She hadn’t prepared for the way they would respond to her attempts to change direction. Hopefully any non-socialist incoming government will have studied her experience and learnt the lessons.
It was the Bank of England that brought Liz Truss down, though the deep state had prepared the trap that she walked straight into.
We can only hope, but are there enough good people up to the task?
I suspect that the way that state has become so bloated and all-encompassing that reform would be well nigh impossible, particularly with an obstructive and resistant civil service in place.
The only means of rescue I can see is a complete dismantling of the entire postwar Socialist state, starting with a Great Repeal Act undoing the damage from the Blair years, then stripping back the state to a limited set of core functions, removing all social engineering legislation in the process.
This would bring about massive deregulation, with the hope that a revitalised private sector could mop up all the labour freed up from the now redundant public sector employees. I’m sure many of them would make excellent baristas with the right training. We would, of course, also need to end welfarism and encourage our unwelcome guests to move on.
Here, here. Me too
Argentina elected a minarchist President, presumably because some of them were sick of the waste of resources that had been going on for decades, but he’s charismatic, and they have a Federal system so he has limited room for manouvre. I agree that I don’t think things will get anywhere near bad enough in my lifetime to see enough people wake up and want the contract with the state to be massively redrawn.
Agreed .
Odd for a former senior bod at IEA to support socialism.
I can’t help but think that this country would be happier under a Reform/SDP dichotomy rather than a Conservative/Labour one. Both champion the idea that it should be an independent democracy, rather than submit to supranational authorities.
Social Democracy is like “non-milk fat” in ice-cream.
The mind is supposed to read non-fat milk (good), to divert from the fact you are not getting what you think you are getting… instead you are getting palm oil.
Putting “social” or “liberal” in front of words is meant to distract from the true nature of the thing.
Just as the Commies named all their countries “democratic” even while imprisoning, torturing and murdering any opposition.