It was the most seismic party split in Britain of the post-war area. For a time it seemed that the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP), in an alliance with the Liberal Party, really could “break the mould” of politics in the 1980s, as it claimed.
But a combination of internal conflicts, an unhelpful electoral system and a war that helped the Tories recover their popularity ended the dream. After Labour lost power to the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the party moved to the left, electing Ebbw Vale MP Michael Foot as its leader in 1980 and seeing a rise in the influence of the Trotskyite Militant Tendency.
Four of Labour’s big hitters - former Home Secretary and Chancellor Roy Jenkins, former Foreign Secretary David Owen, ex-Education Secretary Shirley Williams and the less well-known former Transport Secretary Bill Rodgers - left Labour to form the SDP, taking more than 20 Labour MPs with them as well as recruiting one Conservative.
