Social Democratic Party (United Kingdom)

Social Democratic Party
Party leader	William Clouston
founding	1990
Headquarters	272 Bath Street, Glasgow , G2 4JR 69
Alignment	EU skepticism regionalism social democracy
Colours)	Blue and red
Website	www.sdp.org.uk

The Social Democratic Party is a political party in the United Kingdom . The previous party was active between 1981 and 1988 under the same name. The current party consists of the remnants of this SDP after a merger (1988) and a self-dissolution of the first successor (1990).

History of the old party

1981-1988

The split from Labor

The party emerged as a split from the right wing of the Labor Party , which in the 1980s was further left within the political spectrum than it is today and represented many socialist positions. It was founded on March 26, 1981 by the dissatisfied so-called Gang of Four (German gang of four ), the former Labor politicians Roy Jenkins , David Owen , Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams .

Fusion with the Liberal Party

Since its parliamentary existence was threatened from the start due to the British majority suffrage, the SDP worked together with the Liberal Party , which was also disadvantaged by the suffrage, shortly after it was founded. Together, the Liberal Party and SDP appeared in the general election in 1983 and 1987 as The Alliance . In 1988, the two smaller parties in the middle of the political spectrum merged to form today's Liberal Democrats (initially Social & Liberal Democrats ).

Party leader ( leader )

Surname	Term of office (beginning)	Term of office (end)
Roy Jenkins	July 7, 1982	June 13, 1983
David Owen	June 13, 1983	August 6, 1987
Robert Maclennan	August 29, 1987	March 3, 1988

Election results

year	choice	be right	Share of votes	Seats
1983	General election 1983	3,507,803	11.5%	6/650
1987	General election 1987	3,168,183	9.7%	5/650

1988-1990

Start-ups by minorities

A minority of the party, including co-founder David Owen, failed to merge with the Liberal Party in 1988. She left the merger party and re-founded the SDP. Due to the unsuccessfulness of this remaining party, the majority decided in 1990 to dissolve itself.

Election results

year	choice	be right	Share of votes	Seats
1989	European elections 1989	75,886	0.5%	0/81

History of the new party

A minority of the members at the time did not agree with the self-dissolution in 1990. The day after its dissolution, it re-founded the party, similar to two years before, but no longer achieved its previous importance. It still exists as a small party in the UK to this day. It was represented in individual regional parliaments and tries to distinguish itself against Labor through a course critical of Europe. From November 2018 to July 1, 2019, she was represented in the European Parliament through the transfer of Patrick O'Flynn from UKIP .

Party leader ( leader )

Surname	Term of office (beginning)	Term of office (end)
Jack Holmes	1990	1991
John Bates	1991	2008
Peter Johnson	2008	2018
William Clouston	2018

Election results

year	choice	be right	Share of votes	Seats
1992	General election 1992	35,248	0.1%	0/651
1997	General election 1997	1,246	0.0%	0/659
2010	General election 2010	1,551	0.0%	0/650
2015	General election 2015	125	0.0%	0/650
2017	General election 2017	469	0.0%	0/650
2019	General election 2019	3,295	0.0%	0/650

Web links

• Website of today's SDP

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tommy-robinson-ukip-patrick-oflynn-resigns-mep-sdp-gerard-batten-edl-islam-a8653816.html