"The party's move to the left in the early 1980s led to the decision by a number of centrist party members led by the Gang of Four of former Labour cabinet ministers (Shirley Williams, William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins, and David Owen) to form the breakaway Social Democratic Party (SDP) on 25 January 1981. The broader aims of the party were set out in the Limehouse Declaration the following day. In 1981 the St Ermins group of senior trade union leaders was created, meeting secretly every month initially at the St Ermin's Hotel, who organised to prevent the Bennite left taking"
"and William Rodgers, the so-called ""Gang of Four"") left Labour and formed the SDP, which was launched on 26 March 1981. This was largely seen as the consequence of the Labour Party's swing to the left, polarising divisions in an already divided party. The SDP won the support of large sections of the media. For most of 1981 and early-1982 its opinion poll ratings suggested that it could at least overtake Labour and possibly win a general election. The Conservatives were then unpopular because of the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher, which had seen unemployment reach a postwar high. The"
"Social Democratic Party (SDP) formed by the ""Gang of Four"" prominent figures: David Owen, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins. The SDP had several Parliamentary seats held by defectors from Labour, and one by a defector from the Conservatives, while Williams had won the Crosby by-election, 1981 for the party, leaving Jenkins as the final ""Gang of Four"" member without a seat in the House of Commons. He contested the Warrington by-election, 1981, coming a close second, and remained keen to fight a winnable seat. Within days of Galbraith's death, Denis Sullivan, the chairman of the SDP in Scotland,"
"(SDP) was formed by a split of some prominent figures on the right of the Labour Party in March 1981. Its main figures were the ""Gang of Four"" - Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers. Of the four, Williams and Jenkins were out of Parliament, with the party keen for them to stand in by-elections under their new party label. Following the agreement of an electoral pact with the Liberal Party, who had come third in Crosby in 1979, with 15% of the vote, the two parties supported Jenkins in the 1981 Warrington by-election, where he narrowly"
"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"
"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, 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, ""Democratic"", ""Democratic Labour"", and ""Radical"" were all mentioned as possible names for the new party, as well as ""New Labour"" (which future Labour Party leader and eventual Prime Minister Tony Blair would use to successfully promote the Labour Party more than a decade later) but eventually ""Social Democratic"" was settled on because the ""Gang of Four"" consciously wanted to mould the philosophy and ideology of the new party on the social democracy practised on mainland Europe. The opening statement of principles contained in the preamble of the party's constitution stated that: ""The SDP exists"
"(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"
"back into the margins. In 1981, defectors from a moderate faction of the Labour Party, led by former Cabinet ministers Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Shirley Williams, founded the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The new party and the Liberals quickly formed the SDP-Liberal Alliance, which for a while polled as high as 50% in the opinion polls and appeared capable of winning the next general election. Indeed, Steel was so confident of an Alliance victory that he told the 1981 Liberal conference, ""Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government!"". However, the Alliance was overtaken in the polls by"
"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"
"that the core of the party was swinging to the left and the move exacerbated divisions within the party. In 1981 a group of senior figures including Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams left Labour to found the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The SDP agreed to a pact with the Liberals for the 1983 election and stood as ""The Alliance"". The campaign displayed the huge divisions between the two major parties. Thatcher had been highly unpopular during her first two years in office until the swift and decisive victory in the Falklands War, coupled with an improving"
"SDP–Liberal Alliance The SDP–Liberal Alliance was a centrist political and electoral alliance in the United Kingdom. Formed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Liberal Party, the Alliance was established in 1981, contesting the 1983 general election, 1984 European election and 1987 general election. The Alliance ceased to exist in 1988, when the two component parties merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, later renamed the Liberal Democrats. Following the establishment of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) by the 'Gang of Four' (Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams), who had left the Labour Party in March"
"direction the Labour Party was taking and became part of the nucleus of Labour MPs who contemplated leaving the party in 1979 and 1980. In 1981, Wrigglesworth became one of the founding members of the SDP and with Mike Thomas organised the launch of the new party in March 1981. Wrigglesworth was one of only six SDP Members of Parliament to be returned to the House of Commons in the 1983 general election when he narrowly won the newly created constituency of Stockton South by 102 votes. In the 1987 general election, he was narrowly defeated by the Conservative candidate,"
"Social Democratic Party (UK, 1988) The Social Democratic Party (SDP) formed in 1988 was a political party in the United Kingdom led by David Owen which lasted for only two years. The party was formed as a result of the original Social Democratic Party, created in 1981 by the ""Gang of Four"" (Owen, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, all dissident Labour former ministers) voting to turn its electoral alliance with the Liberal Party into a full merger of the two parties. The new Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD) party thus gained all of the records and assets of"
"Labour MPs formed a breakaway group called the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a move which split Labour and is widely believed to have made the Labour Party unelectable for a decade. The SDP formed an alliance with the Liberal Party which contested the 1983 and 1987 general elections as a pro-European, centrist alternative to Labour and the Conservatives. After some initial success, the SDP did not prosper (partly due to its unfavourable distribution of votes by the First-Past-The-Post electoral system), and was accused by some of splitting the Labour vote. The SDP eventually merged with the Liberal Party to form"
"Council for Social Democracy announcing that they had received 8,000 individual messages of support. The advertisement listed one hundred of their names, which included thirteen former Labour MPs, four of whom had been cabinet ministers including Lord George-Brown, former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. The events leading up to the declaration have been dramatised in the play ""Limehouse"" by Steve Waters at the Donmar Warehouse. The Gang of Four was made up of: Limehouse Declaration The Limehouse Declaration was a statement issued on 25 January 1981 by four senior British Labour politicians, all MPs or former MPs and Cabinet"
"became the first MEP to sit in the European Parliament for the SDP (but in 1984 Michael Gallagher MEP had joined the original SDP). 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"
"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"
"was founded by the so-called ""Gang of Four"" in March 1981, which consisted of right-wing Labour MPs discontent with the direction of the Labour Party at the time; but Mabon later called himself a founder member of the party. He unsuccessfully contested Renfrew West and Inverclyde for the SDP in 1983 after the local Liberals refused to stand their candidate down for him in his previous seat, and fought Renfrew West again for the SDP/Alliance in 1987, and also the Lothians seat in the 1984 election for the European Parliament. Mabon was one of the SDP's negotiators in their merger"
"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"
"SDP formed a political and electoral alliance with the Liberal Party, the SDP–Liberal Alliance. The party merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, now the Liberal Democrats, although a minority left to form a continuing SDP led by David Owen. 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"
"Limehouse Declaration The Limehouse Declaration was a statement issued on 25 January 1981 by four senior British Labour politicians, all MPs or former MPs and Cabinet Ministers: Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams. It became known as the Limehouse Declaration as it was made from David Owen's London home in Limehouse. The opening paragraph of the declaration indicates that it was triggered by decisions taken at the Labour Party conference in January 1981. In this document the so-called 'Gang of Four' signalled their intent to leave the Labour Party and form a Council for Social Democracy, as"
"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"
"although economic growth was now re-established following the recession of 1980 and 1981. The Labour opposition, which changed leader from James Callaghan to Michael Foot in 1980, was in no position to exploit the situation and mount a threat to the Conservative government's power. The change of leader saw the party shift dramatically to the left, and in 1981 a host of disenchanted Labour MP's formed the breakaway Social Democratic Party. The new party swiftly formed an alliance with the Liberals with a view to forming a coalition government at the next election. Roy Jenkins, leader of the SDP, worked"
"party to change their name. By coincidence, a by-election arose in Warrington, in 1981, and Kean stood against the new party with the slogan ""Enforce Law, End Poverty, Create Jobs"". The 1979 SDP's vote fell to 0.1% of the total. The party's final candidacy came at the Glasgow Hillhead by-election, 1982, where Roy Jenkins, a leading figure in the newer SDP, was a candidate. Kean's SDP fielded Douglas Parkin, who changed his name to ""Roy Harold Jenkins"" by deed poll. The SDP took ""Roy Harold Jenkins"" to court, claiming that this attempt to confuse voters constituted a corrupt practice under"
"those Labour defectors who created the SDP in 1981. He helped found Labour Solidarity (1981–83) and credits the group with preventing the disintegration of the Party. Following Labour's devastating defeat in the 1983 general election Foot declined to continue as leader. Hattersley stood in the subsequent leadership election, John Smith was his campaign manager and a young Peter Mandelson impressed Hattersley. The other competitors were Neil Kinnock, Peter Shore, and Eric Heffer. Hattersley had the support of most of the Shadow Cabinet, but the majority of the PLP, the constituency groups and the unions were in favour of Kinnock. In"
"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"
"former MP for Nelson and Colne, who had lost his seat in 1979. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was formed by prominent figures on the right of the Labour Party in early 1981, known as the ""Gang of Four"" – Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers. Of the four, Williams and Jenkins lacked Parliamentary seats, and were keen to stand in by-elections as candidates under their new party label. Following the agreement of an electoral pact with the Liberal Party exactly a month earlier, who had come a distant third in Warrington in 1979, with less than"
"left managed to remove him in 1972. In 1977, Bill Rodgers established the Campaign for Labour Victory (CLV), an organization that was somewhat a successor to the CDS. By 1981, the former CDS members had felt that the Labour party had gone too far to the left and claimed that Trotskyists had taken over the party, removing its responsibility to the party membership. As a result, the ""Gang of Four"" of Labour moderates issued the Limehouse Declaration, stating that they were leaving the Labour Party to establish the Social Democratic Party. Two of the Gang of Four (Roy Jenkins and"
"1981, the SDP entered into an informal alliance with the Liberal Party, led by David Steel. 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 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: The formation of the SDP and the subsequent alliance came at a"
"broke away and established the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The SDP and the Liberals realised that there was no space for two political parties of the centre and entered into the SDP–Liberal Alliance so that they would not stand against each other in elections. The Alliance was led by David Steel (Liberal) and Roy Jenkins (SDP); Jenkins was replaced by David Owen. The two parties had their own policies and emphases, but produced a joint manifesto for the 1983 and 1987 general elections. Following disappointing results in the 1987 election, Steel proposed to merge the two parties. Although opposed by"
"membership. The conference, held in February 1982, decided to offer three options: election by the party membership, election by the MPs only, and a system in which the first leader would be elected by the membership but subsequent leaders by the MPs (on the assumption that there would be many more of them after the next general election). In the event, the membership decided to preserve their power over the election of the leader. Roy Jenkins was unofficially regarded as the Leader of the SDP from the time of its foundation, as the most senior of the founding members. However,"
"purge followed in the SDF at its 1903 Annual Conference, with the dissident radicals denounced as ""Impossibilists"" by the SDF leadership. On 7 June 1903 the Socialist Labour Party was formally established at a meeting in Edinburgh, with the already extant monthly newspaper ""The Socialist"" declared its official organ. The party began with a membership of only about 80 individuals in 4 branches, all in Scotland — two in Edinburgh, one in Glasgow, and one in Falkirk. Although deeply influenced by the Socialist Labor Party of America, members of the fledgling British organisation sought their intellectual independence from the start."