"they felt the party had been taken over by the left-wing members. This Council became the basis for the British Social Democratic Party (SDP). The declaration was launched on a small bridge on Narrow Street, Limehouse. Organisation was very last minute with Matthew Oakshott being sent to make photocopies of the statement at the Savoy Hotel, it having the closest available photocopier, and visiting the flat of Shirley Williams to find appropriate clothes for her to wear at the press call. One week later, on 5 February 1981, an advertisement was published in ""The Guardian"" under the name of the"
"the college going to a block vote of the trade unions. Early in 1981, Owen and three other senior moderate Labour politicians – Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams – announced their intention to break away from the Labour Party to form a ""Council for Social Democracy"". The announcement became known as the Limehouse Declaration and the four as the ""Gang of Four"". The council they formed became the Social Democratic Party (SDP), with a collective leadership. Although Owen was one of the founding members of the party, he was not always enthusiastic about creating a schism on the"
"(Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers, known collectively as the ""Gang of Four"") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which later became the Social Democratic Party in March, after outlining their policies in what became known as the Limehouse Declaration. The ""Gang of Four"" were centrists, who had defected from the Labour Party due to what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the ""hard left"" within the party. After waning electoral success, the SDP merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to create the centrist Liberal Democrats. In the late 1990s, Labour"
"and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject ""Britain's future: the significance of the European dimension"". George-Brown became the president of the Social Democratic Alliance in January 1981, and was a signatory to an advertisement in ""The Guardian"" on 5 February in support of the Limehouse Declaration. However, he did not announce his membership of the Social Democratic Party or SDP for another four years. By that point, his reputation had so declined that Bill Rodgers, who had been Brown's Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (DEA) and the Foreign Office, described"
"Labour Party. Toynbee and her first husband Peter Jenkins (from 1970) were supporters of the Social Democratic Party breakaway from Labour in 1981, both signing the Limehouse Declaration. Toynbee stood for the party at the 1983 General Election in Lewisham East, garnering 9351 votes (22%), and finishing third. She was one of the very few SDP members who believed in unilateral nuclear disarmament, founding an unsuccessful group ""Unilateralists for Social Democracy"". She later refused to support the subsequent merger of the SDP with the Liberals (to form the Liberal Democrats), reacting instead by rejoining Labour when the rump SDP collapsed."
"were largely in constituencies where the Conservative party refused to stand for fear of splitting an established Liberal vote. Since then, many adaptations of the play have kept this brief mention of the obscure political party. However, in the 2002 film version which starred Judi Dench, Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon - the lines were dropped yet episodes and characters in an earlier version of the play that Wilde had been encouraged to drop before the play's first performance were re-incorporated. Liberal Unionist Party The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886"
"a party founded in around 1995 by Christopher Nickerson, which aimed for England to secede from the United Kingdom to support a sense of English national identity; and a party founded by Robin Tilbrook and James Alden in 1999, with the aim of securing a devolved English Parliament, which was later renamed the English Democrats Party in 2002, and then just the English Democrats in 2004. In April 1999, a group calling itself the ""English National Party"" was one of several different organizations which claimed responsibility for a nail-bomb attack in Brixton. David Copeland, who admitted to carrying out the"
"a signatory of the Limehouse Declaration which led to the foundation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which Williams co-founded. MacKenzie was an early member of the SDP, but had no organisational role in the party. He retired from teaching at the University of Sussex in 1983. In 1949 the author George Orwell included MacKenzie on a list of probable communist sympathisers that he prepared for the British Foreign Office. The list was of those considered unsuitable for the preparation of anti-communist propaganda, not those suspected of espionage. After the list was made public in 2002, MacKenzie commented: MacKenzie wrote"
"from 1964 to 1968. Hannan, a committed pro-European, was one of 69 Labour MPs to break a three-line whip and vote for Britain's entry into the European Economic Community in October 1971. He was, however, opposed to Scottish devolution, and was involved with the 'Scotland is British' campaign prior to the 1979 referendum on Home Rule. Always on the right wing of the Labour Party, in 1981 he became a founder member of the breakaway Social Democratic Party (SDP), and in February of that year was one of 100 signatories to an advertisement in ""The Guardian"" supporting the Limehouse Declaration."
"they have common views. By offering to endorse or nominate a major party's candidate, minor parties can influence the candidate's platform. An electoral alliance survives to this day between the Labour Party and the Co-operative Party, which fields Labour Co-operative candidates in general elections in several constituencies, and in some local council elections. They have jointly contested elections since the 1927 Cheltenham Agreement. As of the 2017 general election, there are 38 Labour Co-operative MPs, the third-largest political grouping in the Commons (after the Conservative Party and Labour). The SDP–Liberal Alliance began in 1981, shortly after the Limehouse Declaration. The"
"to the left while the Conservatives had drifted further to the right. This drove a significant number of right wing Labour members and MPs to form a breakaway party in 1981, the Social Democratic Party. Labour fought the election on unilateral nuclear disarmament, which proposed to abandon the British nuclear deterrent despite the threat from a nuclear armed Soviet Union, withdrawal from the European Community, and total reversal of Thatcher's economic and trade union changes. Indeed, one Labour MP, Gerald Kaufman, has called the party's 1983 manifesto ""the longest suicide note in history"". Consequently, upon the Labour split, there was"
"Limehouse Group in an attempt to keep the party on the centre-left course that was first propounded in the Limehouse Declaration. Two more SDP MPs were elected at by-elections during the 1983-87 parliament, but at the 1987 general election, the Alliance's share of the vote fell to 23%, and the SDP's parliamentary party was reduced from eight members to five. Roy Jenkins was among those who lost their seats. Mike Hancock had won a by-election at Portsmouth South in 1984 from the Conservatives which was lost in 1987, but Rosie Barnes, who had won the bitterly contested Greenwich by-election in"
"the Conservatives. In 1975, Labour held a special conference on British membership and the party voted 2 to 1 for Britain to leave the European Communities. In 1979, the Labour manifesto declared that a Labour government would ""oppose any move towards turning the Community into a federation"" and, in 1983, it still favoured British withdrawal from the EEC. Under the leadership of Neil Kinnock after 1983, however, the then opposition party dropped its former resistance to the European Communities and instead favoured greater British integration into European Economic and Monetary Union. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher however gained much popularity"
"the split in the Labour Party in 1981 and the formation of the Social Democratic Party. In July 1974 similar trouble emerged for Labour with the defection to the Liberals of Christopher Mayhew, Labour MP for Woolwich East. Labour fought on the poor record of the Conservative government. The Tories highlighted improvements in pensions and government investment in regional development in the North East of England. The Liberals were starting from scratch in their campaign and attacked Labour for its complacency in an area which it was alleged they took their support for granted and the Conservatives on their performance"
"which the yes and no campaigns were both cross-party – the referendum voted in 1975 to continue Britain's membership by two thirds to one third. This issue later caused catastrophic splits in the Labour Party in the 1980s, leading to the formation of the Social Democratic Party. In the initial legislation during the Heath Government, the Bill affirming Britain's entry was only passed because of a rebellion of 72 Labour MPs led by Roy Jenkins and including future leader John Smith, who voted against the Labour whip and along with Liberal MPs more than countered the effects of Conservative rebels"
"Westminster, and the House of Lords would be abolished by creating one thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. Benn received tumultuous applause. On 25 January 1981, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers (known collectively as the ""Gang of Four"") launched the Council for Social Democracy, which became the Social Democratic Party in March. The ""Gang of Four"" left the Labour Party because of what they perceived to be the influence of the Militant tendency and the Bennite ""hard left"" within the party. Benn was highly critical of the SDP, saying that ""Britain has had SDP"
"Libertarian Party (UK) The Libertarian Party, also known as the Libertarian Party UK (or LPUK), is a libertarian political party in the United Kingdom. Adam Brown has been the party's leader since August 2015. The party was founded in January 2008 under the leadership of Patrick Vessey, having registered the party with the Electoral Commission in November 2007. In May 2008, ""Daily Telegraph"" leader writer Alex Singleton claimed the founders should have set up a pressure group rather than a party. Singleton believed the new party would reduce the influence of libertarianism. On 17 September 2008, Vessey resigned as party"
"the Liberal Democrats in 1988. Support for the new party has increased since then, and the Liberal Democrats (often referred to as Lib Dems) gained an increased number of seats in the House of Commons at both the 2001 and 2005 general elections. The Labour Party was defeated in a landslide at the 1983 general election, and Michael Foot was replaced shortly thereafter by Neil Kinnock as party leader. Kinnock progressively expelled members of Militant, a far left group which practised entryism, and moderated many of the party's policies. Despite these changes, as well as electoral gains and also due"
"of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a right-wing Labour breakaway movement formed in 1981. The Liberals and SDP had contested elections together as the SDP–Liberal Alliance for seven years previously. The modern Liberal Party had been founded in 1859 as an outgrowth of the Whig movement or party (which began at the same time as the Tory Party and was its historical rival) as well as the Radical and Peelite tendencies. The Liberal Party was one of the two dominant parties (along with the Conservatives) from its founding until the 1920s, when it rapidly declined in"
"""a distortion running right the way through British politics"" because ""a majority of Jews in this country supported the Labour Party and elected a number of Jewish Labour MPs"". The ""Labour Herald"" folded in 1985, after Healy was accused of being a sex offender and he was expelled from the WRP. A supporter of Irish reunification, Livingstone had connections with the left-wing Irish republican party Sinn Féin and in July, met with the mother of an imprisoned Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) militant Thomas McElwee, then taking part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. That day, Livingstone publicly proclaimed his"
"for adult women in 1928 after the Suffragette movement. Politics in the United Kingdom is multi-party, with three dominant political parties: the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party. The social structure of Britain, specifically social class, has ""long been pre-eminent among the factors used to explain party allegiance"", and still persists as ""the dominant basis"" of party political allegiance for Britons. The Conservative Party is descended from the historic Tory Party (founded in England in 1678), and is a centre-right conservative political party, which traditionally draws support from the middle classes. The Labour Party (founded by"
"Liberal Unionist Party The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party formed a political alliance with the Conservative Party in opposition to Irish Home Rule. The two parties formed the ten-year-long, coalition Unionist Government 1895–1905 but kept separate political funds and their own party organisations until a complete merger was agreed in May 1912. The Liberal Unionists owe their origins to the conversion of William Ewart Gladstone to the cause"
"in terms of the number of seats in the House of Commons, are the Conservative and Unionist Party and the Labour Party. The Scottish National Party has the second largest party membership, but a smaller number of MPs as it only fields candidates for constituencies in Scotland. The modern day Conservative Party was founded in 1834 and is an outgrowth of the Tory movement or party, which began in 1678. Today it is still colloquially referred to as the Tory Party and members/supporters referred to as ""Tories"". The Liberal Democrats or ""Lib Dems"" were founded in 1988 by an amalgamation"
"has its origins in the initiative ""A New Party for Britain"" launched in late 2002, at a time when speculation about the possibility of a split in the UK Conservative Party was rife, during the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith. Before the launch, the party announced in January 2003 that it planned to scrap the Scottish Parliament, and it was decried by David McLetchie, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, as ""fascist and undemocratic."" The party was officially launched on 14 March 2003, when the party was founded under the name , with funerals businessman Howard Hodgson as its spokesman."
"People's Democratic Party (United Kingdom) The People's Democratic Party of Great Britain (PDP) is a minor centrist/centre-right and secular political party in the United Kingdom. It advocates giving democratic power back to ""ordinary people"" and away from the traditional larger three political parties of the United Kingdom. It also supports equality of opportunity, meritocracy, aspiration, localism, social justice, free quality state education and the National Health Service. The party was founded in July 2012 by Lee Robert Holmes, who was a local candidate for the Conservatives and campaigner against the Iraq War. The party was created in response to what"
"Alan Kilshaw, who resigned when he and his then wife became involved in an adoption scandal. Other than seeking legal advice, the party has been inactive since at least 2005, and received no income in 2008 or 2009. According to the Electoral Commission the party was 'de-registered voluntarily' in June 2010. Democratic Party (UK, 1998) The Democratic Party was a political party in the United Kingdom, founded in November 1998 by Malvern businessman Geoff Southall, who also funded the party. It was described as ""right wing"" or ""hard right"" in news reports, but claimed to occupy the centre-ground of British"
"but closer to a ""party within a party"" was formed: the New Liberals. On 28 March it was renamed the Liberal Movement. The conservatives strongly criticised Hall and his new movement, accusing them of undermining Eastick, disrupting the party and being disloyal. It quickly gained support within the LCL's membership, capturing a number of party branches and began preselecting its own members. Robin Millhouse was a member of the faction, and served as the deputy leader of both the LCL and the LM. Thanks to the electoral reform that had occurred, with more urban electoral districts to contest, the urban-based"
"National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1931 to 1968. It broke away from the Liberal Party, and later co-operated and merged with the Conservative Party. The Liberal Nationals evolved as a distinctive group within the Liberal Party when the main body of Liberals maintained in office the second Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald, who lacked a majority in Parliament. A growing number of Liberal MPs led by Sir John Simon declared their total opposition to this policy and began"
"be revived as an affiliate of the Conservative Party. National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1931 to 1968. It broke away from the Liberal Party, and later co-operated and merged with the Conservative Party. The Liberal Nationals evolved as a distinctive group within the Liberal Party when the main body of Liberals maintained in office the second Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald, who lacked a majority in Parliament. A growing number of Liberal MPs led by Sir John Simon"
"Liberal Democrats (UK) The Liberal Democrats (often referred to as the Lib Dems) are a liberal British political party formed in 1988 from a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a splinter group from the Labour Party which had formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance from 1981. At the 2010 general election, the Lib Dems led by Nick Clegg won 57 seats, making them the third-largest party in the House of Commons behind the Conservatives with 306 and Labour with 258. With no party having an overall majority, the party formed a coalition government with the Conservatives,"
"Social Democratic Party (UK, 1990–present) The Social Democratic Party is a minor political party in the United Kingdom, established in 1990. It traces its origin to the Social Democratic Party that was formed in 1981 by a group of dissident Labour Party Members of Parliament (MPs) and former MPs: Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, who became known as the ""Gang of Four"". This party merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats, but Owen, two other MPs and a minority of party activists formed a breakaway group with the same name immediately"
"Free England Party The Free England Party was a right-wing political party in the United Kingdom, which campaigned for English independence. Founded in 2008, and registered with the Electoral Commission in February of that year, it was at the time the largest English civic nationalist party in the United Kingdom. The Free England Party was formed in 2008 by Andrew Constantine and Richard Aitkins, both former members of the English Democrats. The party was formed due to the alleged ""appalling mismanagement of England by the British government"", following the devolution legislation enacted in the 1990s by Tony Blair's Labour government."
"British Democratic Party (2013) The British Democratic Party, commonly known as the British Democrats, is a British far-right political party. It was launched in 2013 in a village hall in Leicestershire by a ten-member steering committee which included former members of several political parties including the British National Party (BNP), Democratic Nationalists, Freedom Party and UK Independence Party (UKIP). The party's inaugural president was Andrew Brons, a then Member of the European Parliament (MEP). Brons had been a member of the BNP and a leading member of the National Front (NF). The steering committee included a number of others with"