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AHC: More Successful SDP

RyanF

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Inspired by absolutely nothing in particular in the news yesterday, how might the Social Democratic Party have enjoyed better success in the UK through the 1980s to the point where they might still have representation in the Commons to today?

Some random musings...

  • Woy the Boy joins the Liberals - if Roy Jenkins had joined the Liberals at some point before David Owen, Bill Rodgers, and Shirley Williams leave the Labour Party he would be unlikely to join any new venture they tried. Jenkins was the one most committed to wedding the new party to the Liberals, so without him we might see the SDP pursue a more independent strategy though some co-operation would obviously be needed. It would also give the SDP (and the Liberals for that matter) a less patrician figure such as Williams or Owen to lead them into the next General Election.
  • Tony Benn becomes deputy leader of the Labour Party - a very close run election in 1981 gave Denis Healey the position of Deputy Leader of the Party after missing out on becoming Leader the year before. If Benn had been elected might this see further defections to the SDP? I'm inclined to think not, except perhaps George Robertson or one or two others, without some real general election success from the SDP or the Alliance I think they might have squeezed the Labour defections all they could.
  • Different strategy in the 1983 General Election - what if the SDP had pushed for a greater effort to be made at retaining the seats won through defections and by-elections in 1983? The result might have been a lower vote share but more seats as their votes would be better concentrated?
  • Better showing in the 1987 General Election - at several times in 1986 polls showed the electorate split almost equally three ways between the Conservatives, Labour, and the Alliance; but several public disagreements over defence and between the Two Davids over the course of action in the result of a hung Parliament saw the Alliance fall back in the polls. What if these disagreements could be made less public, possibly if Thatcher had resigned over Westland that and the resulting leadership election would give the press more to focus on. A better performance in 1987 might have avoided merger into the Social and Liberal Democrats in 1988, especially if the SDP were propping up a Tory government in a hung Parliament.
  • Better performance in Bootle 1990 - Following on from a second place in the Richmond by-election in 1989, coming behind the Monster Raving Loony Party in Bootle in 1990 was such a blow that the continuing SDP of Owen, John Cartwright, and Rosie Barnes was wound up. If they had a better showing and the party was still active then perhaps the three could have held on to their seats in a 1991/2 General Election.
Perhaps they would always be doomed to disappear without a merger, if they were able to make it to junior partner in coalition with the Conservatives they might see their vote share collapse like the Lib-Dems in 2015. It's not difficult to imagine a world though were David Owen pulled a Jim Anderton or Peter Dunne and remained in the Commons until the 2000s or 2010s leading his own one man band of Social Democrats, possibly with a few devoted members holding on in South West London to give him an entourage. If they can remain electorally active above the local government level until devolution perhaps this would give them a new lease on life, I can imagine them having at least one or two list members in the Scottish Parliament or London Assembly for at least the initial elections.
 
For the late continuity SDP, what about the 1989 Richmond (Yorks) by-election? I believe Iain has hinted before that that one could have been 'interesting'.

Certainly an interesting case as is with below results.

Screenshot_20190219-130939_Wikipedia-01.jpeg
If either the SDP or the LSD had not stood the other might have likely one it.

Perhaps some more votes can be squeezed from the LSD candidate towards the SDP, after all this was right in the late 80s nadir of the soon to be Liberal Democrats. It came a mere three months before the 1989 European elections.
 
I’ll expand more when I get my resources back, but off hand the most immediate way the SDP could have improved their chances was to allow David Steel to be the Alliance’s ‘Prime Minister designate’ during the 1983 campaign rather than Woy.
 
Right I'm going to ignore the more obvious and over-used PODs like no Falklands and will instead focus on the more niche and SDP-orientated PODs.

1) SDP wins Darlington. This is a pretty big POD which has been overlooked a lot. Basically have a better candidate in the 1983 Darlington by-election who won't melt when interviewed by Vincent Hanna and you could have had a much more shocking result with SDP gaining its first by-election victory against Labour four years earlier than OTL. In hindsight, many of the Gang of Four have specifically said this rather poor by-election performance was the marker for things Starting To Go Wrong for them in the lead up to 1983. However, one thing to bear in mind is that in the lead up to the by-election whispers within the Labour ranks had said that Michael Foot would have to resign if Darlington was lost. If that did happen, then you might have a situation with Healey taking over and being more amenable to potential SDP voters. Though IMO, the damage was probably already done by then anyway. Strong 1983 showing would not only strengthen the entire Alliance going forward, but more specifically strengthen the SDP, who before 1983 were very dominant within parliament in terms of sheer MP numbers. A stronger SDP under David Owen's leadership would probably chart a more independent course than before.
2) Steel resigns after 1983. Now while this would have undoubtedly been quite damaging for the Alliance but once again better for the SDP. A less inspiring figure as leader such as Alan Beith would have once again allowed David Owen to clearly emerge as The Leader in All But Name of the Alliance, avoiding all the tweedledee and tweedledum references and allow the SDP to shape a more radical policy programme than "Keynes is Still Good you Moron"
3) Bigger fallout from the Greenwich by-election, 1987. The Greenwhich By-election marked a second golden age for the SDP, Labour absolutely shat the bed, with many beginning to predict both defeat and a hung parliament with the SDP as the kingmaker. In particular, the local elections that year just before the general showed the Alliance on 27% the highest base for any third party since the 1920s. Have them stick to that and you get a very interesting result.

And now 4, the very best POD.

4) SDP win Richmond.

In David Owen's, he called the period from 1988-1989 "The Battle of the Mice". For a series of by-elections the SDP and the new Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD) were basically fighting for the status of Britain's third party. Epping Forest was actually the first shock. Steve Norris was pushed to the line, but had either one of them stood down for the other, they would have won the seat in what would have been quite a sensational victory. In the Richmond by-election, this was only more apparent. SDP's Mike Potter came agonizingly close in what was the worst Tory performance since Thatcher had become PM in an incumbent seat. Once again, if either had stood aside they would not only have won, but would have done so in a landslide.

What's often forgotten is that while David Owen opposed the LibDem merger, he didn't actually oppose a continued alliance, and basically saw these by-election battles as a means of driving home the point that the two centre parties killing each other was ridiculous and that an electoral pact would be the only viable way of maintaining a centre party in British politics. While Paddy Ashdown was initially dismissive, pledging in his early leadership that the LibDems would not only go it alone, but work to replace Labour, Epping Forest and Richmond were humbling experiences which sparked rumblings within the party faithful. Most prominently, David Alton, who had been put basically on "defection watch" and the SDP's president John Cartwright, released a joint statement calling for an alliance to prevent electoral "annihilation" for the centre. After the Richmond result, Paddy was finally forced to release a statement calling for greater unity and common ground, but didn't specifically back a pact.

Eventually Ashdown and Owen would meet but basically came to impossible loggerheads and nothing came of it, particularly as SDP's performances began to dip, the membership figures subsided and Ashdown began to claw things back.

However, if the SDP triumphs in Richmond the fallout would be a lot more dramatic, in particular for Ashdown, who was already worrying that he would be the Liberal Party's last leader. If the Richmond result breathes new life into the SDP, with national polling showing them overtaking the Lib Dems, and even David Alton making the jump to the soggies as so many feared, things could get very bad for him quite quickly.

With a more competitive performance in the Euro-Elections, which could knacker the SLD's already shockingly bad share of the vote in OTL, I wouldn't be shocked if pressure would be enough for Paddy to finally give in and basically allow the formation of a new Alliance.

With the SDP nailed on safe in 4 seats, and given a clear run in a few of the old stomping grounds like Oxford and parts of London, I could see a new Alliance existing into the 1997 election and beyond.
 
For the late continuity SDP, what about the 1989 Richmond (Yorks) by-election? I believe Iain has hinted before that that one could have been 'interesting'.

Had we not stood, Potter would have walked it. Had he not stood, we'd have had a chance but I suspect some of his support in the more rural wards would have gone to Billy Fizz and it would have been a close run thing. Potter had the support of the smaller Independent group on NYCC - which was known to the staff as the Independent Fascist Farmers and won several of the rural wards especially the ones in Hambleton, he also won Thirsk and Richmond itself, we won Northallerton, Romanby and a couple of the rural wards and Hague won the rest.
 
@AlfieJ - I recall Owen in his book (which is actually the book that got me seriously interested in current politics back in 2010) talks about the Darlington by-election as one of his thinly veiled what-if scenarios. I think he also talked about Bill Pitt and Croydon North being a missed opportunity and the SDP getting (I think?) Shirley Williams to fight that by-election instead. Or I may be mixing that up with something else.
 
@AlfieJ - I recall Owen in his book (which is actually the book that got me seriously interested in current politics back in 2010) talks about the Darlington by-election as one of his thinly veiled what-if scenarios. I think he also talked about Bill Pitt and Croydon North being a missed opportunity and the SDP getting (I think?) Shirley Williams to fight that by-election instead. Or I may be mixing that up with something else.

Doctor Death was keen to get Shirley Williams back into Parliament as soon as possible, he originally wanted her to stand in Warrington and win the by-election then become leader of the Party. He saw at the time the SDP providing most of the electoral credibility by being the dynamic, new force, in his opinion, but some lingering resentment over Shirley's indecisiveness over Warrington and more importantly the desire to prevent disagreement amongst the four meant they did not press the issue when the Liberals insisted on nominating Pitt. They might have stood their own candidate, but likely no one of any name value would be willing to go for it without the Liberals standing aside, and acrimony with the Liberals would not have sat well with Jenkins and others.
 
If we're excluding Falklands-wrangling then Benn is the big one. There seems to be a tendency to say 'Ohhhh t'movement would have endured, lad' in accounts, probably because the historiography on it is Labour-dominated, well, maybe. It's pretty obvious though that there would have been a huge bleed of defections at all levels. It wouldn't have been 'just' the issue of Benn, it would have been the fact that it would have confirmed what a lot on the right believed, that the electoral college would permanently shut out the right, so it would have effectively been seen as a factional death-knell by a lot of people. And on the back of a very democratically questionable exercise. (CLPs that did ballot had markedly more pro-Healey returns than the non-democratically based constituency section suggests) It's hard not to see it as an inevitable breaking point.
 
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