The Opposition: Labour's Divisions & the SDP (AQA A Level History: Component 2: Depth study): Revision Note

Internal Labour divisions

The impact of the 1979 defeat

• Labour's defeat in 1979 pushed the party sharply to the left

  • Many activists blamed the Callaghan government's pay policy and the Winter of Discontent

  • The left argued that Labour had lost because it had governed too cautiously, not because its policies had been too radical

• Party policy moved away from the positions Labour had followed in government

  • The party backed unilateral nuclear disarmament

  • The party supported withdrawal from the European Economic Community (EEC)

  • Further nationalisation was proposed

    • These policies later became central to Labour's 1983 manifesto

The 1980 leadership election

• James Callaghan resigned as Labour leader in October 1980

• Michael Foot defeated Denis Healey by 139 votes to 129 in November

  • Foot came from the Bevanite left

    • He supported unilateral nuclear disarmament

  • Healey came from the centre-right of the party and had been the favourite

• This was the last Labour leadership election decided only by MPs

  • Moderates later used the result as evidence that influence was shifting away from the parliamentary party

Changing the party rules

• Labour's left also pushed through major constitutional changes

• Mandatory reselection meant MPs had to win approval from their constituency party before each general election

  • This gave local activists more influence over sitting MPs

• A special conference at Wembley on 24 January 1981, created an electoral college for choosing the Labour leader

  • Trade unions received 40% of the votes

  • Labour MPs received 30%

  • Constituency Labour parties received 30%

• Moderates feared that the changes reduced the influence of Labour MPs

  • They also argued that a small number of powerful union leaders could have too much influence over who led the party

The 1981 deputy leadership contest

• Tony Benn challenged Healey for the deputy leadership in April 1981

  • The campaign lasted almost six months

  • It was fought through newspapers, television and constituency meetings

• The result was announced at the Brighton conference on 27 September 1981

  • Healey won 50.4%

  • Benn won 49.6%

  • The margin was less than one percentage point

• The result showed how deeply divided Labour had become

  • Healey accused Benn's supporters of organised heckling during the campaign

  • The Bennites had come very close to winning the second-most-senior position in the party

Militant Tendency and entryism

• Militant Tendency was a Trotskyist group operating inside the Labour Party

  • It practised entryism

    • This meant joining an existing political party and trying to change it from within

  • It took its name from the newspaper Militant

• Militant Tendency built its support in some key local areas

  • It was particularly influential in Liverpool

  • Derek Hatton, a leading Militant supporter, became deputy leader of Liverpool City Council in 1983

• Liverpool's Militant-led council later confronted the Conservative government over spending and rate-capping

  • Its slogan was "Better to break the law than break the poor"

Approach: Mike Hogan was a left-wing Labour activist in Liverpool during the early 1980s and had been involved with Militant Tendency. He gave this interview in 2012, many years after the events he describes

The source is useful for showing why Militant appealed to some young working-class activists in Liverpool. Hogan links unemployment, class politics and local campaigning to a sense that Labour could challenge Thatcher’s policies

However, it is a personal recollection written with hindsight. Hogan also ends by describing a later sense of betrayal by the Labour leadership, so his memory of the early movement may be shaped by how the conflict eventually ended

Kinnock's counter-attack

• Labour had already begun acting against Militant Tendency before Kinnock became leader

  • In February 1983, the National Executive Committee expelled five members of the Militant editorial board

• Neil Kinnock replaced Foot as Labour leader in October 1983

  • He pushed the campaign against the hard left much further

• At the 1985 Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth, Kinnock publicly attacked the Militant-led Liverpool council

  • He criticised its handling of council finances and its treatment of council workers

• Militant supporters in Liverpool, including Derek Hatton, were expelled during 1986

  • The expulsions were upheld at that year's conference

• Kinnock also criticised Arthur Scargill for failing to hold a national strike ballot during the 1984–1985 miners' strike

  • This illustrates that he was prepared to challenge figures on the Labour left as well as Thatcher

Approach: The source is useful because it shows Kinnock trying to reassert control over Labour and distance the party from the hard left. His audience included both Labour delegates in the hall and voters watching through television coverage, so the speech was also intended to improve Labour’s public image

However, it was a highly political intervention in an internal party struggle. It therefore shows Kinnock’s case against Militant rather than a neutral account of the dispute

The formation of the SDP, 1981

Why did the split happen?

• Labour's move to the left after 1979 alarmed many of its moderate MPs

  • They opposed policies such as unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the EEC and further nationalisation

  • They were also concerned that new party rules were giving more power to trade unions and constituency activists

• Roy Jenkins had already argued for a new centre party

  • In his Dimbleby Lecture on 22 November 1979, he called for a realignment of British politics

    • He argued that the two-party system left many moderates without a political home

• Three senior Labour moderates reached a similar conclusion during 1980

  • David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers published an open letter in The Guardian on 1 August 1980

    • They warned that Labour was moving away from parliamentary democracy and its commitment to Europe

• The special Labour conference at Wembley on 24 January 1981 became the immediate trigger

  • It created the new electoral college for choosing the party leader

  • Owen had also failed to secure one member, one vote

  • The moderates believed the party was moving beyond their influence

The Limehouse Declaration

• On 25th January 1981 four senior Labour figures issued the Limehouse Declaration:

  • Roy Jenkins

  • David Owen

  • Shirley Williams

  • Bill Rodgers

• The four became known as the Gang of Four

  • All had held Cabinet offices in Labour governments between 1974 and 1979

• The declaration announced plans for a Council for Social Democracy

  • It did not immediately create a new political party

  • This allowed the group to build support before making a complete break with Labour

• Nine Labour MPs joined the council the following day

• The declaration called for:

  • parliamentary democracy

  • a more equal society

  • economic recovery

  • rejection of political extremism

  • a new centre ground in British politics

Approach: The Limehouse Declaration was issued publicly by Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers on 25 January 1981, one day after Labour’s Wembley conference. All four were former Labour Cabinet ministers and were preparing to break with the party

The source is useful for showing how the Gang of Four justified the split. It presents Labour’s move to the left and the new electoral college as threats to parliamentary democracy. However, it was written to win support for their breakaway, so it gives the founders’ case rather than a balanced account of Labour’s problems

Launching the SDP

• The Social Democratic Party was formally launched on 26 March 1981

  • It began with 14 MPs

    • 13 were former Labour MPs

    • Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler had previously been a Conservative

  • Membership grew rapidly to about 65,000 by the end of 1981

• Across 1981 and 1982, a total of 28 Labour MPs defected to the SDP

  • Many later lost their seats at the 1983 general election

    • Some had built their support while standing as Labour candidates

    • Those voters did not automatically switch their support to the SDP

• The SDP deliberately positioned itself in the political centre

  • It supported:

    • a mixed economy

    • membership of the EEC

    • NATO

    • multilateral nuclear disarmament

  • Electorally, it also supported:

    • proportional representation

    • more decentralised decision-making

• The SDP's policies were close enough to those of the Liberal Party to make cooperation possible within months

The SDP-Liberal Alliance

Forming the Alliance

• The SDP and Liberal Party agreed to work together within three months of the SDP's launch

  • They published a joint statement, A Fresh Start for Britain, on 16 June 1981

  • The two parties agreed not to compete with each other for the same voters

• The partnership gave both parties something they lacked on their own

  • The Liberals brought local organisation and long experience of fighting by-elections

  • The SDP brought nationally known politicians with Cabinet experience and strong press coverage

• David Steel, the Liberal leader, believed the Alliance could challenge the two main parties

  • At the Liberal Assembly in September 1981, he told activists to return to their constituencies and "prepare for government"

The by-election breakthrough

• The Alliance performed strongly in a series of by-elections between 1981 and 1983

• Alliance support in the opinion polls reached around 50% in December 1981

  • For several months, it competed with the two established parties for the lead

• The momentum did not last

  • Support fell during 1982

  • The Darlington by-election in March 1983 convinced many in the SDP that the breakthrough had stalled

  • The Conservative recovery after the Falklands War also reduced the Alliance's opportunity

The Alliance at the 1983 election

• The Alliance won 25.4% of the vote in 1983

  • It gained only 23 seats

    • The Liberals won 17

    • The SDP won 6

• Labour won 27.6% of the vote and 209 seats

  • Only 2.2 percentage points separated Labour and the Alliance

  • Yet Labour won 186 more seats

• The gap was largely caused by first-past-the-post (FPTP)

  • Alliance support was spread widely across the country

  • It often finished second without winning in a constituency

  • Labour's support was more concentrated in areas where it could still win seats

• The result showed that a large national vote did not automatically produce parliamentary representation

Approach: David Steel was Leader of the Liberal Party and joint leader of the Alliance when he spoke in the House of Commons on 22nd June 1983, shortly after the general election

The source is useful for showing how Alliance leaders explained the gap between their share of the vote and their number of seats. Steel argues that the result gave the Alliance a case for electoral reform and presents the existing system as unfair

However, his party had just won around a quarter of the vote but fewer than 4 per cent of the seats, so he had a clear political reason to criticise first-past-the-post. The source is therefore strongest for showing the Alliance’s own explanation of its limited parliamentary success

The Alliance in 1987

• The Alliance remained an important national force

  • It won 22.6% of the vote in 1987

  • It secured 22 seats

• This represented a decline from 1983

  • Its vote share fell from 25.4% to 22.6%

  • Labour recovered some support under Neil Kinnock

• The Alliance, therefore, remained a major third force

  • However, it had failed to replace Labour as the main opposition to the Conservatives

Tensions inside the Alliance

• Relations between the two leaderships were often difficult

  • David Steel led the Liberals

  • David Owen led the SDP from 1983

    • The press called them the "Two Davids"

• Steel favoured closer cooperation between the two parties

• Owen wanted the SDP to keep a clearer, separate identity

  • Particularly with regard to defence and nuclear weapons

• The partnership also caused practical problems

  • The parties had to agree which one would contest each constituency

    • This sometimes produced disputes at local level

• Voters were, therefore, offered a joint programme, but two parties and two leaders

  • This made it harder for the Alliance to present itself as a clear alternative government

• The Liberals and SDP eventually merged in 1988

The weakness of the opposition

Labour's 1983 campaign

• Labour entered the 1983 general election with a programme that reflected the party's move to the left since 1979

  • The manifesto promised:

    • unilateral nuclear disarmament

    • withdrawal from the EEC

    • further nationalisation

    • abolition of the House of Lords

• Labour MP Gerald Kaufman later described the manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history"

  • The phrase came from within Labour itself, showing how divided the party remained over the programme

• Labour won only 27.6% of the vote

  • This was the lowest share since 1918

  • The party lost 60 seats

• Michael Foot resigned after the defeat

  • Neil Kinnock replaced him as leader in October 1983

Approach: Foot gave this speech to the Labour Party Conference in October 1983, after resigning as leader following the election defeat. He accepted the scale of Labour’s defeat but rejected the idea that the manifesto alone was responsible

The source is useful for showing how Foot defended Labour’s programme after the election. However, he had led the party into the defeat, so he had a reason to resist arguments that his policies or leadership were mainly to blame. The source is therefore strongest for showing how Labour’s left explained the result

The problem of leadership

• Foot was highly experienced

  • He was first elected as an MP in 1945

  • He was respected in Parliament as a writer and a strong debater

• He struggled to present himself effectively to a wider electorate

  • Press coverage of Foot and Labour was often hostile

  • Opinion polls regularly placed Thatcher ahead of him on leadership qualities

• Television had become increasingly important in election campaigns

  • Foot's strengths in parliamentary debate did not always transfer easily to television

The split anti-Conservative vote

• Labour and the SDP-Liberal Alliance together won around 53% of the vote in 1983

  • The Conservatives won 42.4%

  • Yet they secured an overall majority of 144

• The anti-Conservative vote was divided between two rival opposition forces

  • Labour won 27.6%

  • The Alliance won 25.4%

• Under first-past-the-post (FPTP), this division helped the Conservatives

  • In many constituencies, Labour and Alliance candidates both attracted substantial support

  • A Conservative candidate could therefore win without receiving half of the vote

• The electoral system increased the effect of the split

  • The Alliance finished only 2.2 percentage points behind Labour nationally

  • It still won 186 fewer seats

Labour's changing electoral base

• Labour could no longer rely as strongly on the voters who had supported the party since 1945

  • Traditional working-class communities were shrinking as heavy industry declined

  • Trade union membership was also falling

• Some traditional Labour voters moved towards the Conservatives

  • Council house tenants who bought their own home were a notable group

  • Others voted Alliance or stopped voting altogether

• Labour's image also became a problem

  • Some voters increasingly associated the party with trade union power and the political left

  • The Labour Party was sometimes seen as distant from the concerns of ordinary voters

• Labour-controlled councils could also damage the party nationally

  • The dispute in Liverpool attracted national attention

    • It reinforced criticism of the party's hard left

• Right-wing newspapers attacked Labour councils, such as Ken Livingstone's Greater London Council (GLC), as the "loony left"

Why was the opposition to Thatcher so ineffective?

• This question asks for the reason behind the weakness of the opposition between 1979 and 1987

  • Some key factors are outlined below with evidence for each

Labour's internal divisions

• The party fought two leadership contests and a rule-change battle in under three years

  • The 1980 leadership election and the 1981 deputy leadership contest were both decided by narrow margins

  • The Wembley electoral college shifted power towards unions and activists

• The divisions were argued out in public rather than settled privately

  • Conference debates and heckling were reported nationally and filmed for television

  • Kinnock's confrontation with Militant kept the split visible into 1986

• Energy spent on internal disputes was energy not spent on opposing the government

The formation and impact of the SDP

• The breakaway removed a generation of experienced moderates from Labour

  • Two former Cabinet ministers in the Commons (Owen and Rodgers) and 26 other Labour MPs left, while Jenkins and Williams led the breakaway from outside Parliament

  • Their departure left the Labour left in a stronger position inside the party

• The SDP took votes from Labour rather than only from the Conservatives

  • Its appeal was strongest among the moderate voters Labour needed to win back

• The split gave the Conservatives a divided opposition to face at two general elections

The electoral system

• First-past-the-post punished the Alliance severely

  • In 1983, it took 25.4% of the vote and 3.5% of the seats

  • Labour took barely two points more, but won nine times as many seats

• The system also concealed the weakness of the Conservative position

  • The Conservatives won a majority of 144 in 1983 on a lower share of the vote than in 1979

    • A proportional voting system would have produced a very different Parliament

The Alliance's own weaknesses

• The partnership never fully resolved its double leadership

  • Steel and Owen differed publicly, particularly over defence

  • Local negotiations over which party fought which seat caused friction

• The Alliance had no regional stronghold to build on

  • Its support was even and shallow across the country

• Its peak came early and was not sustained

  • Polling of around 50% in December 1981 had fallen well back before the 1983 campaign began

Conservative strengths

• The government recovered ground from a low point in early 1982

  • Inflation was falling and the economy had begun to grow again

  • The Falklands factor transformed Thatcher's standing

• The Conservatives had the support of the national press

• Policies such as council-house sales attracted voters who had previously backed Labour

Approach: Thatcher wrote this account in The Downing Street Years, published in 1993, several years after the events. She argues that Labour’s move to the left and the formation of the SDP made the opposition easier to defeat

The source is useful because Thatcher directly explains how she understood the weakness of her opponents. However, she was writing a memoir about governments she had led, so she had a reason to present Conservative success as the result of Labour’s mistakes as well as her own leadership

Her explanation should therefore be compared with other factors, especially the electoral system, the Alliance’s weaknesses and Conservative economic recovery