Liberal Party (UK) - Alliance With Social Democrats

Alliance With Social Democrats

When the Labour government fell in 1979, the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher won a victory which served to push the Liberals back into the margins.

In 1981, defectors from the moderate wing of the Labour Party, led by former Cabinet ministers Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Shirley Williams, founded the Social Democratic Party. The new party and the Liberals quickly formed an alliance, which for a while polled as high as 50% in the opinion polls and appeared capable of winning the next general election. However, they were later overtaken in the polls by the Conservatives and at the 1983 general election the Conservatives triumphed by a landslide, with Labour once again forming the opposition, while the SDP-Liberal Alliance came close to Labour in terms of votes (a share of more than 25%) although it only had 23 MPs compared to Labour's 209.

The 1987 election saw the Alliance's share of the votes drop slightly and it now had 22 MPs, and in the election's aftermath Liberal leader David Steel proposed a merged of the two parties. Most SDP members voted in favour of the merger, but SDP leader David Owen objected and continued to lead a "rump" SDP, with the merger of the two parties being completed in March 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, becoming the Liberal Democrats in October 1989.

Read more about this topic:  Liberal Party (UK)

Famous quotes containing the words alliance with, alliance, social and/or democrats:

    It is a power stronger than will.... Could a stone escape from the laws of gravity? Impossible. Impossible, for evil to form an alliance with good.
    Isidore Ducasse, Comte de LautrĂ©amont (1846–1870)

    But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The protection of a ten-year-old girl from her father’s advances is a necessary condition of social order, but the protection of the father from temptation is a necessary condition of his continued social adjustment. The protections that are built up in the child against desire for the parent become the essential counterpart to the attitudes in the parent that protect the child.
    Margaret Mead (1901–1978)

    Do you know I believe that [William Jennings] Bryan will force his nomination on the Democrats again. I believe he will either do this by advocating Prohibition, or else he will run on a Prohibition platform independent of the Democrats. But you will see that the year before the election he will organize a mammoth lecture tour and will make Prohibition the leading note of every address.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)