WI No SDP-Liberal Alliance?

RyanF

Banned
Whilst it may seem a no-brainer for the third and fourth largest parties in a two party system to work together it might it not have gone any further than an informal alliance along the lines of the Gladstone-MacDonald pact in individual seats?

Might Roy Jenkins defecting to the Liberal Party before David Owen, Bill Rodgers, and Shirley Williams make their move lead to such a scenario?

Many people presumed in the early 1980s that the UK would eventually see a Conservative-SDP coalition government in that decade. Then the Falklands War happened and the Conservatives were given their largest majority in decades. A matter of dispute in the Alliance was who they would be willing to work with in a hung parliament, with the Liberals preferring Labour and the SDP the Conservatives.

In a scenario with no formal SDP-Liberal Alliance might we eventually see the development of a two and two halves party system in the UK, with governments either being the Conservatives supported or in coalition with the SDP or Lab-Lib coalitions or pacts.

Obviously there's a lot more to consider, but what if there was no formal SDP-Liberal Alliance in 1981?
 
I don't really have anything to add other than with regards to a point in your second paragraph.

Get. Out. Of. My. Brain.
 
Well, one thing to think about is if the SDP would even win seats. After all, the Alliance saw the parties agree not to compete against each other, but if there's no alliance, would the Liberals and SDP be competing at the constituency level?
 
Jenkins going to the Liberals? That's one of the essays featured in Prime Minister Portillo.

And something I may use in an upcoming list. I have a couple of essays I need to read from there first.

Well, one thing to think about is if the SDP would even win seats. After all, the Alliance saw the parties agree not to compete against each other, but if there's no alliance, would the Liberals and SDP be competing at the constituency level?

In which case they would probably knock each other out
 

RyanF

Banned
Well, one thing to think about is if the SDP would even win seats. After all, the Alliance saw the parties agree not to compete against each other, but if there's no alliance, would the Liberals and SDP be competing at the constituency level?

As @KingCrawa says it's likely to hurt both of them so I expect we'd see some level of cooperation.

The aforementioned Gladstone-MacDonald Pact provides a template of such cooperation that need not lead to further cooperation, just an informal agreement between the two parties to not contest in seats where they might split the anti-Conservative or anti-Labour vote. The Greens standing aside to give the Lib-Dems a clear run at Richmond this week is a similar set-up, although in that case I imagine Lucas is hoping it leads to something further.
 
As @KingCrawa says it's likely to hurt both of them so I expect we'd see some level of cooperation.

The aforementioned Gladstone-MacDonald Pact provides a template of such cooperation that need not lead to further cooperation, just an informal agreement between the two parties to not contest in seats where they might split the anti-Conservative or anti-Labour vote. The Greens standing aside to give the Lib-Dems a clear run at Richmond this week is a similar set-up, although in that case I imagine Lucas is hoping it leads to something further.

Of course. I imagine that marginal constituencies would be especially subject to such informal pacts.
 
It's an interesting idea, but somehow the existence of the two separate parties would need to change the debate and political trends at work for it to make a practical difference. As things stood, the SDP/Liberal Alliance didn't win many seats in 1983 or 1987, certainly not enough to prevent Tory majorities and single-party governments. If they had been competing against each other, they probably would have won even fewer seats, unless somehow one of them were able to manage a real breakthrough due to not having to accommodate the other.
 
As has been noted above, a situation where they compete against each other would in all probability mean self destruction. The SDP struggled even more than the Liberals to win seats under FPTP, vote splitting would mean that they would lose most of their existing seats (Kennedy wouldn't be elected either) and take out quite a few of the Liberals as well.

A more informal pact in certain seats would likely prevent that, however. What is more, the absence of Jenkins would allow the SDP to have a leader who was more suited to lead an insurgency against the two party system, in all probability David Owen, seeing as Shirley Williams didn't seem to want it. If the Liberals stood aside in the same by elections as OTL, I can imagine it going slightly better for the SDP in terms of vote share, maybe they retain some more of their seats in 1983. The Liberals would be squeezed however, seeing as most of the initial popularity of Alliance came about due to the addition of the SDP. They would probably win less seats than they did in OTL.

In the long run, I am not entirely sure there is enough differences to see the two co-existing in a four party system without merging together or one falling by the way side as the other takes the limelight. I am not sure if each party really had a preference over who to govern with in OTL, but if it was as you suggest then it would likely switch over time as Labour moderated itself. The SDP had a pretty strongly social democratic wing to it, with the likes of Charles Kennedy and Vince Cable. I'd argue that those who were most sceptical of the 2010 coalition (Cable, Kennedy) were ex SDP members who would have preferred Labour. Equally, the Orange Bookers, who seemed to be mainly from Liberal ranks, were most positive about it.

If both parties survived, maybe you would see the SDP aligning itself to the left of New Labour and targeting more urban areas, with the Liberals being an orange booker party closer to the Tories and has a more rural appeal. They would probably only win one or two dozen seats each, however, and as such exercise limited influence on governments. Maybe one of them would get involved in something similar to the Lib-Lab pact, but they would not grow to the size of OTL Lib Dems, and thus not play such a big role in government.
 

RyanF

Banned
Been reading into this some more, I think the only way it could happen would be for Roy Jenkins to want to take a back seat from politics for a while. He either joins the Liberals as a matter of principle or joins the SDP to support the new breakaway. In our now Gang of Three we might see David Owen's desire to keep the new Party as independent from the Liberals as possible but still work with them become their strategy. I understand Owen was even in favour of challenging the Liberals in local and HoC by-elections to accomplish this.

If the SDP put up Shirley Williams in Warrington, as Owen wanted but Williams declined either because she was afraid of losing (polls disagreed she would - remember trusting polls?) or because she felt Jenkins was the new party's natural leader (here he is happily enjoying long press lunches and after dinner speeches attacking Labour and the Tories), the Liberals might be inclined to stand aside to give the new Party a helping hand - or more likely to allow one of the new party's leaders back into parliament who might be more open to closer cooperation than Dr. Owen. Come Croydon North-West however the parties might be in open competition (they almost were OTL with Owen again wanting to have Williams stand but local Liberal Bill Pits demanding he stand) and this would easily give the seat to the Conservatives. After this they may adopt a more unified strategy for by-elections, along the lines of whoever has the better chance of winning it stands. We still don't have a unified manifesto or a proper Alliance as we did OTL.

Heading in 1983 we'll probably see an agreement in place where they don't contest in each others held seats or in their target seats, let's be honest the principles of both parties are close enough even without the Alliance that they won't lose that significant a portion of their OTL voters to either the Conservatives or Labour. Owen's grand strategy was to maintain the seats of the defecting Labour members at all costs, he may appear a more tough leader than Jenkins did and in the immediate aftermath of Falklands this is only a positive thing.

It will still be a rough night for both parties though, the Two Davids problem that came to form so much of their problems 1983-1987 would be there right from the very beginning and there might be problems with local members in many constituencies putting up a "Real" Liberal or "Real" SDP candidate in protest at their constituency being given to the other side. The problem with their impressive result on that night was that it was too evenly spread across the country, the Liberals are well known doorstep warriors and coupled with the SDP putting more of a focus on defending their held seats at all costs might they do better in some constituencies but worse across the country as a whole; looking at the vote totals you'll probably see they didn't quite break the mould as they wished, but who looks at the vote totals across the country in a FPTP system? All that matters is bums on benches.
 
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This is a great theme worth exploring. By no means was the alliance between Liberals and SDs a natural event, it was made natural by the leadership of David Steel and Roy Jenkins. I think for this separation and contest (at some level) to work you would need to remove David Steel from the leadership of the Liberal Party. I think the most natural POD here would be for Boy David to lose the leadership contest to John Pardoe in '75, though that means no Lib-Lab Pact and that's a story/timeline in it of itself as well. John Pardoe regarded David Steel's lack of pressure on Roy Jenkins to join the Liberal Party as close to treason. If we allow for Pardoe to become Leader of the Liberals and have him survive the '79 general election with a seat (maybe he does not go out of his way to fight to save Thrope's seat and appear at Thorpe's rally in person all common sense to contrary). Pardoe would pressure Roy to join the Liberals, but Roy was a schismatic, not an aisle crosser. However, Pardoe could easily get David Marquand to join (Marquand volunteered to join the Liberals in OTL and was talked out of it by David Steel, who warned such an act would only bring in two to three more MPs, while a separate party could cause a bigger revolt). Marquand was seen at the weather-vane of Roy Jenkins and that would fuel rumors (or is it rumours) that Roy would soon bolt as well. But I do not see Roy bolting, just dallying with it and then going to SDP.

All this would mean we would not have a natural leader to the Gang of Four, but I'd hesitate to crown David Owen. Shirley Williams was not ready for the burden of leadership (as I recounted in my timeline below - thumb up, cheap pop!). But Dr. David Owen was more or less her choice for leadership of SDP in juxtaposition to Roy Jenkins. In '82, the good doctor was seen as left of Roy, at least by Shirley. Alarmed by Roy's centrist tendencies and love of Liberals, Shirley backed David to challenge him to take the party leftwards. With the threat of Roy leadership neutralized, Shirley might well turn to the Ringo of the Gang of Four - Bill Rodgers. David Owen was not a natural choice for leadership in the eyes of the rank and file and his fellow MPs until after the Falklands War, when his genuine nationalism and support for the War impressed people. But that was once again due to being contrasted to a rather hapless Roy Jenkins, whose performance in the Commons in '82 and '83 was absolutely awful. Roy was unsuited to be a leader of a small party in the House. David Owen got a lot of press because while Roy struggled, he seemed to be on firm ground. But all of this is post-Falklands and in '82. In '81, post Wembley Labour conference disaster, the Gang of Three with Roy lurking only in the shadows would not be in a hurry to nominate a strong leader to speak for them all, they would try to push for a consensus troika. Once that would be unfeasible, due to how modern politics work, I can see Shirley pushing for Bill Rodgers as much as David Owen. Bill had stronger Cabinet credentials, had connections to more Labour politicians and although he did not love Gaitskell with the passion that Roy had for the man, he was a Gaitskellite through and through and was a Social Democrat from the Social Democratic wing of the Labour Party. David Owen was a parvenu. He joined the Party late in his life, had no history of activism prior to joining and was the last man of the Gang of Three to leave the Party, and was pushed into it by being heckled at the Labour conference. Yes, he was charismatic and yes with exposure of TV he could win the vote among the SDP members, but it was no sure thing. Bill Rodgers, motivated, and freed from the shadow of his politically bigger brother Roy could have been made leader of the SDP. Paradoxically, it was the shadow of Roy that drove David Owen. Without Roy being on the other side, David might not fight as hard to slay his opponent. Oh he'd still have went off into his tent to sulk had he lost (as he did Roy in OTL) and he would have been absolutely nasty to deal with for months afterwards, but I can see Bill beating David for leadership.

So, with John Pardoe on the Liberal side, with Boy David as a vocal member of his Party, but shut out of leadership and strategy, the Liberals would be less likely to make a deal with any other Party, SDP or otherwise. John Pardoe favored broad front at sending out as many Liberals to contest as many seats as possible and parachute dropping activists into wastelands and building up Liberal vote there rather than wait for it to spring up on its own. He would not be as ready to agree to let SDP contest 311 seats in the next general. He would negotiate hard.

Bill Rodgers or David Owen would not be in a position to play friends to Liberal in seat selection as well. Here it is hard to say who would be a bigger hardliner. In OTL, Bill Rodgers nearly sunk the alliance electoral pact by going to the press about the problems of negotiating with Liberals. David Owen is... David Owen. Negotiating was not in his forte, at least not with anyone who was male and arguing with him as his equal or near-equal. Dr. Owen could take orders (he worked wonderfully with Barbara Castle as her subordinate), and Dr. Owen gave orders. Dr. Owen was not collegiate. So without a formal electoral pact, SDP and Liberals would either embark on mutual self-destruction or an informal pact.

John Pardoe would not guarantee the SDP that no Liberal would run in any seat currently held by an SDP MP defector from Labour, but he could step back and allow SDP to run against vulnerable Labour seats where Liberals were not doing well, in exchange for SDP agreeing not to run against vulnerable Tory seats. It is hard to remember or grasp, but conventional wisdom held that SDP would act as Labour Party Mark II at one point and take over for Labour in Labour held areas. It took a couple of by-elections and one general to destroy that wisdom and realize SDP was drawing centrist voters from disaffected Tories in the same proportion as Liberals and was drawing largely the same small amount of disaffected of Labour voters as the Liberals. So all of these informal negotiations would take place before such discoveries are really made. It would be a rough and tumble not quite quid pro quo for seats and it would be messy and leave bad feeling on both sides.

There would no be SDP Glasgow-Hillshead in such a timeline. Nor SDP Warrington. Both of those relied on Liberal activists to work side by side with SDP "political virgins." SDP provided the troops, but it was experienced local Liberal canvassers who were showing them how to fight third party by-election in both cases. There would still be victories. And Shirley and Roy would make it into the House, just in other places. A non-aligned Roy could even be tempted to take over a Tory seat in Maidstone, whose Tory MP John Wells in OTL suggested Roy take the seat because John Wells is a very curious human being.

Ultimately, in the '83 general election of this timeline, with SDP contesting about 100 seats (if led by Bill Rodgers), would suffer no worse than they did in OTL. Maybe they would do a bit better, as they could focus their energies on a small set of seats. There would be less bloodshed over who would lead the Alliance (in the dark book of odd political backstabbing, Steel's attempted palace coup to oust Jenkins deserves a chapter by itself). Yes there would be some confusion on the part of the voters as to why people who agree on most things would form two different Parties and fight each other (in some seats) and the feel good factor of The Alliance working together would be lost, but in its place would be a more traditional political fist fight that most people could understand.

Liberals in '83 would do better than in OTL, in the sense they'd win more seats than in OTL, but they would lose deposits in a lot more seats in OTL and John Pardoe would not survive the subsequent purge due to the financial issues and the demoralizing effect of so many loses across the board. The broad front strategy would be retired and we might see Boy David take the throne. But by this point, Liberals and SDP would be separate journeys due to their respective leaders.
 
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