40 Years since the Limehouse Declaration
It is 40 years (Monday 26th January 1981) since the ‘gang of four’ Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams made the Limehouse Declaration and formed the Council for Social Democracy.
Ultimately they split from Labour to form the SDP which in due course became what is today the Liberal Democrats.
Self-evidently I was never a fan and the SDP had elements in it that were Cold War, anti-Communist, Atlanticists who was I particularly un-fond of. It also had however numbers who might arguably be characterised as Fabians, who believed in equality, and progress and were keen to see these things actually happen in British society.
Tony Benn noted of the supporters of the Council for Social Democracy ‘it was the middle class coming out in support of a break from the Labour Party’.(7th February 1981). He also noted that the ‘BBC is now the voice of Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins’ underlining that the left’s focus on the media has a long history. There was without doubt sympathy for the SDP in the BBC (some might reflect it was better than its historic tendency to accommodate Tory views) but it was also of course rather newsworthy as the first split in Labour since 1931.
While 2019 saw fresh attempts to reconfigure what is now known as centrist politics at the Parliamentary level they gathered little support and the Liberal Democrats poll ratings remain resolutely in single figures.
The 40th anniversary was marked by a piece in the Times by current LibDem leader Ed Davey and a statement by the party currently known as the SDP whose politics have nothing at all to do with sentiments of the Limehouse Declaration.
It is a little too early to understand the historical impact of Limehouse but some might think it was more of a moment than a movement.
Limehouse Declaration
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