This week thirty five years ago was the signing of the Limehouse Declaration

The struggle for social democracy and towards the SDP with some personal recollections

Part 1.

On Monday January 25 it will be 35 years since the signing of the Limehouse Declaration which led to the Social Democratic Party in March 1981. Those are the official starting points but as with much else the story goes back much further.

It took well over twenty years for the party to come into being because the more one delves into the events of the 1970s the more one gets dragged further back into the events of the 1960s so that in actual fact the SDP’s historical lineage goes back to the end of the 1950’s.

The same is true when examining the histories of the Labour and Liberal parties. 

The historical timeline of the political parties greatly interests me because it teaches us so much about where we are now and what is taking place these days. Also it is always the case that when we are too close to the action there is invariably a tendency to miss the key signs.

The fact is that where it is today the Labour party has been there before and indeed one can say the same to some extent about the Liberal Democrats (Liberal party).  

But to return to the Social Democrats and their ultimate emergence as a political party, the divisions really started with the struggle between the Aneurin Bevan and Hugh Gaitskell in the late 1950’s.

The Labour party has always been an uneasy coalition It was born out of an alliance between working class trade unionists and middle-class socialist intellectuals. So throughout my lifetime it has never been able to decide whether it is a party of gradual reform in the liberal and social democratic tradition or a left-wing and socialist movement. So the party has more often than not engaged in a struggle between socialists and social democrats.

The first period where the social democrats inside the party were strong and in fact had a controlling influence was between 1955 and 1963 under Hugh Gaitskell’s leadership. He also had very powerful support from a group of loyal and right-wing trade union leaders as well as a strong group of intellectuals like Roy Jenkins and Anthony Crosland.

The latter’s book ‘The Future of Socialism’ was the clearest and most influential expression of Gaitskell’s philosophy. In his book Crosland built on the ideas of Keynes and Beveridge and stated that the Labour party should exist for the pursuit of equality, preservation of personal freedom and representative democracy. Most crucially he argued that nationalisation should no longer be the key goal of a modern social democratic state.

Of course all this was anathema to Aneurin Bevan and his left wing followers and so there followed bitter struggles. As a teenager, brought up in a predominantly mining environment these struggles were well rehearsed in the communities where I lived.  Indeed I recall going to hear Bevan speak in vast market hall in Carmarthen – I would have been no more than14 years old. Apparently there were some 4,000 there and I remember to this day the heckling and shouting that went on as he was speaking and also the crowds’ roars of laughter as invariably Bevan got the better of the hecklers with his oratory and wit.

Labour lost the 1959 General Election and Gaitskell at a two-day conference that followed the defeat proposed that Clause Four of the Party’s constitution should be done away with and consequently the Labour Party would abandon its commitment to public ownership. There was fierce opposition from the left and indeed even some moderate trade union leaders gave it a cool reception. So the proposal was quietly dropped in the interest of party unity and compromise. It’s worth noting that it took the party over 30 years to drop Clause 4 when Blair became leader and he also proceeded to change the party’s name to ‘New Labour’ (SDP Mk2)!

The left were buoyed by Gaitskell’s retreat and at the 1960 Scarborough Conference the party’s defence policy of multinational nuclear disarmament was replaced in favour of unilateralism. Although Gaitskell indicated that neither he nor the Parliamentary Party (PLP)  would feel bound by this decision and angrily displayed his defiance during his Leader’s speech to ‘fight and fight and fight again to save the party I love’.

So the first open schism emerged then and the social democrats agreed a manifesto and formally launched in November 1960 ‘The Campaign for Democratic Socialism’. It is interesting for me to recall some of the names associated with that group as I became to know them so well in the 1970’s – Dick Taverne, Brian Walden, Denis Howell, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams who did not get too involved as she was Secretary of the Fabian Society at the time. The group achieved its aim – unilateralism was defeated at the 1961 party conference and a number of these social democrats were selected as parliamentary candidates by 1963.

The pendulum swung back by 1963 and the social democrats were in full control of all major organisations of the party – PLP, National Executive (NEC) and the Conference. So believing that their victory would be permanent the ‘Campaign’ movement as an organisation was disbanded.  

That January Gaitskell died and there followed a leadership contest between the social democrat George Brown and the more left wing candidate Harold Wilson who was one of Bevan’s disciples in the 1950’s.  Wilson won for a variety of reasons that I won’t dwell on here. .

Labour won the 1964 and 1966 General elections through the sheer campaigning genius, oratorical skills and the relaxed and clever television appearances of Wilson. His government were typical of the man himself – non-ideological and pragmatic. Also his cabinet was dominated by social democratic heavyweights such as Jenkins, Crosland, Healey, Brown and Callaghan.

Because of his pragmatism, compromise and fudge style of leadership Harold Wilson succeeded in alienating the left and the right alike and this led to bitter in-fighting and feuding that carried on well into the 1970’s. Ironically his two governments also marked the decline of the social democratic influence inside the party.

The second Wilson administration 1966 -70 saw the left wing of the party gathering much more influence and strength, the new members joining the party were more socialist in their beliefs and they were supported a newer and more left wing group of trade union leaders. Hence increasingly there were conference resolutions more critical of the Labour Government.

However following the 1966 General Election young and very able new social democrats arrived in the Commons – David Marquand, John Mackintosh and David Owen – and in 1967 the three published a pamphlet ‘Change Gear’ that interestingly included establishing elected assemblies for Scotland, Wales and the English Regions. Of course they did not get far with their social democratic ideas and they were dismissed out of hand.

This was also the time that I became really aware of what was going on. Before what was taking place had been nothing more than of general and academic interest to me even though I had been a party member since about 1960.  In 1967 I became candidate in Carmarthen then later in early 1969, at the request of Jim Callaghan, I found myself the Research and Public Relations Officer for the party in Wales in 1969 and then MP in June 1970. So the events of that period are very well known to me as I was closely involved in quite a number of them.

I entered Parliament as a sort of Lib/Lab type politician with clear views on many aspects relating to Wales particularly the Welsh language, devolution of power and party democracy. But I soon realised that the Labour Party I believed in was not the party that was represented in Parliament. In fact it didn.t take me long to believe that I was probably ‘in the wrong party’. But more about all this when a book on my life and times will emerge later this year!

My recollection is of a PLP that was perpetually divided on the questions of Europe, defence, public ownership, role of the trade unions and economic policy. Then in addition to that list the Welsh Labour group of MPs were divided not only on those issues but also the Welsh language and devolution. At the time the Welsh MPs who were social democrats included Cledwyn Hughes, Ifor Davies, Wil Edwards, Tom Ellis, Ednyfed Hudson Davies, Jeffrey Thomas and myself.

Within the PLP the social democrats were divided mainly into two groups of MPs – the Roy Jenkins group some 60 strong often referred to as the ‘Jenkinsites’ and the Anthony Crosland group of some 20 MPs. The latter grouping was more accommodating towards the Wilson leadership and the general leftward slant of the party at the time.

What caused a more serious chasm than hitherto and one which led ultimately to a complete fissure was the Labour party row over whether or not Britain should join the European Common Market (EEC). Wilson’s was ambivalent on the issue working hard to keep the party united . On the one hand he had a deputy leader in Jenkins who was pro Europe and a PLP that was seriously split but then the NEC, party conference and general membership in the country were opposed to Britain’s entry.

As far back as 1959 Roy Jenkins and others had set up a Labour Common Market Committee which became in the mid 60’s the Labour Committee for Europe. So Europe had been for a long time a matter of principle just as much as the struggle over nuclear disarmament was in 1960. Throughout the months of long debates in Parliament in 1971 over whether Britain should join the EEC the ‘Jenkinsites’ – 69 of them - voted with the Conservative Government. In fact they operated as a party within a party with Bill Rodgers acting as unofficial whip to the group.

Sometimes I voted with them but at other times not, particularly on the issue of whether the party should declare itself in favour of a referendum on EEC membership. To me that seemed not a fudge or a compromise position to take but the correct policy so I parted company with Jenkins on that issue and some others as well most notably the likely impact (as it was perceived at the time ) joining the EEC would have on Wales in terms of industrial and economic development. In April 1971 Jenkins resigned as deputy leader on the issue that the next Labour Government should hold a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the EEC. Nevertheless from 1972 onwards I became ever closer to Jenkins and the social democratic wing of the party for a number of reasons that would take too much space to explain.

Increasingly over that period the pro- EEC group of MPs were effectively becoming disengaged from the party and the atmosphere within the PLP was not good or a happy one. So by 1974 Europe had become to many of them more important than remaining members of the Labour Party. Indeed many Labour MPs had difficulties with their local parties over their pro-EEC views throughout the period and none more so than Dick Taverne.

There was a history of disagreements between Taverne and his local party going back a few years and eventually in 1972 his constituency party in Lincoln voted that he should stand down at the next election. He appealed to the NEC and his appeal was turned down so Dick resigned his seat which resulted in a by-election. I recall the events very well and to be honest social democrat MPs did not take kindly to what he had done. He on the other was pushing for a breakaway party and that Jenkins should lead this breakaway. I recall Roy telling me that Dick had been pushing that line since November 1971 but felt the time was far from being ready for such an outcome.

At the by-election March 1 1973 Dick stood as a Democratic Labour candidate and won with a massive 13,000 majority. Later in October that year he launched a national Campaign for Social Democracy with the intention of fighting elections across the country but before much else could happen to his plan Heath called an early General Election in February 1974 at the time of the miners’ strike and the three day working, power cuts and so on. His motive was clear and his belief was that the electorate would back him.

However it was not to be and to everyone’s surprise Heath narrowly lost the election. He did try and hang on to power by trying to persuade the Liberal to come into coalition after a few days of internal rows within the Liberal Party the venture failed. So Harold Wilson was Prime Minister again for the third time and Labour was back in Government.

So the referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the EEC was once again back on the political agenda and a very serious storm if not a hurricane was soon going to be on the way. By now I was Roy Jenkins’s Parliamentary Secretary and a Member of the Council of Europe and I realised that inside the Labour Party in Wales I was very much a ‘marked man’ – there wasn’t going to be much of a future for me in the party after that! 

I had only managed to hang on to my Carmarthen seat by 3 votes – one of the most historical elections in Welsh political history so I firmly was of the opinion that the leftward lurch was damaging to the party. It was also a time when Tony Benn was upping the stakes and beginning to call the tune and dictate matters through the NEC. So much so that I released a press statement that included the sentence:

‘The captain of the ship (Wilson) in the middle of a storm does not attend a meeting called by the first mate (Benn)’

I was interviewed by Robert Kee on the ITN lunchtime news and when I returned to the central lobby of the Commons there was Wilson’s PPS waiting for me seeking an assurance that I was not ‘having a go at Harold’! 

My next intervention was possibly the one that sealed my fate when on June 27 1974 in a letter to the Executive of the Carmarthen Constituency Labour Party I warned the members of what was happening to the Labour Party

‘ cannot any longer conceal my acute concern about some developments in the Labour Party which will in my view not enhance the prospects of the party and will also affect the longer term unity of the Labour movement …….I happen to believe strongly in the principles of Social Democracy …..Some doctrines which are propagated on the extreme left of the Labour Party are neither cherished nor supported by the majority of those who vote Labour’

Those same sentiments I also voiced to a crowded meeting of the PLP.

A month later Roy Jenkins delivered a speech in Haverfordwest on July 26 and one that both of us and Mathew Oakshott who travelled with us from London knew would cause a major furore within the party. Roy himself recounts in his memoirs ‘A Life at the Centre’ that the speech was:

‘one of the most explicit and critical speeches that I had ever made about the Labour Party’s drift to the left’

It received extensive press coverage and on reading the papers he said it was with ‘a mixture of excitement and trepidation’. I also spoke at this meeting where there must have been 600 present and it was like a rally and a call to action. Again Roy recounts that after the speech ‘I had a lot of letters… more than at any other than when I resigned the deputy leadership’

After that meeting both of us knew that, as we had discussed several times before, it was ultimately going to lead to only one conclusion. Then Christopher Mayhew joined the Liberals.

Part 2 to follow
The EEC Referendum and beyond.