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January 25, 2006
25 Years Ago
25 years ago today, 4 misguided Labour Party members effectively condemned their party to 3 consecutive general election defeats and 16 years of opposition. They also set in motion a train of events that eventually gave us New Labour and Blairism.
The four people were David Owen, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, whose Limehouse Declaration should be remembered as a lesson for cowards and traitors everywhere.
The calamitous outcome of the Labour Party Wembley conference demands a new start in British politics. A handful of trade union leaders can now dictate the choice of a future Prime Minister.
The conference disaster is the culmination of a long process by which the Labour Party has moved steadily away from its roots in the people of this country and its commitment to parliamentary government.
We propose to set up a Council for Social Democracy. Our intention is to rally all those who are committed to the values, principles and policies of social democracy.
We seek to reverse Britain’s economic decline. We want to create an open, classless and more equal society, one which rejects ugly prejudices based upon sex, race or religion.
A first list of those who have agreed to support the council will be announced at an early date.
Some of them have been actively and continuously engaged in Labour politics. A few were so engaged in the past, but have ceased to be so recently. Others have been mainly active in spheres outside party politics.
We do not believe the fight for the ideals we share and for the recovery of our country should be limited only to politicians. It will need the support of men and women in all parts of our society.
The council will represent a coming together of several streams: politicians who recognise that the drift towards extremism in the Labour Party is not compatible with the democratic traditions of the party they joined and those from outside politics who believe that the country cannot be saved without changing the sterile and rigid framework into which the British political system has increasingly fallen in the last two decades.
We do not believe in the politics of an inert centre merely representing the lowest common denominator between two extremes.
We want more, not less, radical change in our society, but with a greater stability of direction.
Our economy needs a healthy public sector and a healthy private sector without frequent frontier changes.
We want to eliminate poverty and promote greater equality without stifling enterprise or imposing bureaucracy from the centre. We need the innovating strength of a competitive economy with a fair distribution of rewards.
We favour competitive public enterprise, co-operative ventures and profit sharing.
There must be more decentralisation of decision making in industry and government, together with an effective and practical system of democracy at work.
The quality of our public and community services must be improved and they must be made more responsive to people’s needs. We do not accept that mass unemployment is inevitable. A number of countries, mainly those with social democratic governments, have managed to combine high employment with low inflation.
Britain needs to recover its self-confidence and be outward-looking, rather than isolationist, xenophobic or neutralist.
We want Britain to play a full and constructive role within the framework of the European Community, Nato, the United Nations and the Commonwealth.
It is only within such a multi-lateral framework that we can hope to negotiate international agreements covering arms control and disarmament and to grapple effectively with the poverty of the Third World.
We recognise that for those people who have given much of their lives to the Labour Party, the choice that lies ahead will be deeply painful. But we believe that the need for a realignment of British politics must now be faced.
The formation of the SDP resulted in the defection of 29 Labour MPs, all of them moderates, leaving the centrists in the Labour Party fragmentmented and isolated. As a consequence the Labour Party was unable to present a coherent, realistic and broad-based opposition to Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives at a time when it was so badly needed. Worse still, their departure led to a rise to prominence and power of the worst elements of the extreme left of the Party, leaving the public with a looney left image that took years to shift.
Had they stayed, it is likely that they could have helped to bring about the modernisation and reform which the Labour Party was in need of. And with reform would have come a return to government after a far shorter time in opposition which would have helped to disuade the Party from supporting New Labour/Blairism. How many Party Members supported the direction Blair was leading the Party, but gave their support in almost desparation after 18 years of opposition? Without 18 years in the wilderness, would the dumping of Clause 4 have even been considered, let alone achieved?
And did the Gang of Four really achieve a realignment in British Politics?
Barely a year after the Limehouse Declaration came the Falklands War. Thatcher went from being one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers to become the Iron Lady, Blessed St Margaret who could do no wrong. On a tidal wave of popularism, she went to the country in 1983 and won a resounding victory. In that election, the SDP polled almost as many votes as Labour, albeit winning fewer seats. How different would the 1983-1987 Parliament have been had the SDP not diluted the Left? And Williams and Rodgers both suffered defeat in the Polls, so although 1983 may have been the highwater mark of the SDP, it wasn't particularly high.
Then the rump of the SDP decided to merge with the Liberals to become the LibDems, while Owen ploughed a lonely furrow until the SDP candidate in the Bootle by-election of 1991 polled fewer votes than Screaming Lord Sutch of the Monster Raving Loony Party.
For Labour 1983 brought a change in leader, with Neil Kinnock replacing Michael Foot. Although a former left winger, Kinnock brought a moderate stance to the leadership, going as far to lambast Militant and attacking the Militant-dominated Liverpool Council in 1985. But it was an uphill struggle. With the original defection of moderates, a vacuum was left in the centre of the Party, a vacuum that would eventually be filled by people such as Mandelson, Blair et al.
How different would Labour have looked in 1992 without the defections of 11 years earlier? How different would the Country have looked with a moderate Labour government elected in 1992, instead of a further 5 years of dogmatic, shambling Conservative government under John Major.
The Limehouse Declaration may be 25 years old today, but I for one will not be celebrating.
Posted by Clive on January 25, 2006 9:56 AM in the category Politics