‘British Social Democracy in the 1970s: the Labour ‘right’ and the origins of the SDP

Abstract

While the British Social Democratic Party (SDP) formed in 1981 was marked by ideological inconsistencies, the role of ideas and longer-term ideological conflict within Labour's dominant social democratic tradition in its formation should not be overlooked. It was not merely, as conventional accounts often suggest, the result of more immediate party constitutional reforms which threatened the position of this coterie in Labour's internal power structures. The wider ideological and political fragmentation of Labour's centre-right coalition from the late 1960s over a range of key policy debates, including EEC membership, trade union reform and key issues of economic policy around public spending levels, led to the fracture of the Labour Party and critical rupture of British social democracy.