AHC: The UK has a Social Democratic PM in 2018

[James G]

How could the 1981-created Social Democratic Party (not the current one; a 1990 minor offshoot) had thrived in the 1980s and today be one of the UKs two big parties: i.e. being either the government or official opposition and therefore have a PM in the current day? The Liberals can or cannot be subsumed but this wouldn't be the joint Lib-Dems of today.

My first fault is a different or no Falklands War, but support for the SDP was wavering before then and that might not have changed things.
Ideas?

[stevep]

Dec 19, 2018 21:38:16 GMT James G said:

How could the 1981-created Social Democratic Party (not the current one; a 1990 minor offshoot) had thrived in the 1980s and today be one of the UKs two big parties: i.e. being either the government or official opposition and therefore have a PM in the current day? The Liberals can or cannot be subsumed but this wouldn't be the joint Lib-Dems of today.

My first fault is a different or no Falklands War, but support for the SDP was wavering before then and that might not have changed things.
Ideas?

  I think that's the obvious one, or possibly that the war occurs but is a disaster for Britain.

  Alternatively, if there was wavering support, which I only really saw from the establishment I could see the alliance being the 2nd largest party, possibly with Foot resulting in a serious implosion for Labour and another round of infighting.

  Or that the alliance is still 3rd but make significant progress and holds the balance of power.  Get an agreement, probably with Labour although that would cause a lot of tensions between them and the SDP and as part of that you get electoral reform.  That would be the decisive factor in allowing new parties to break the old dinopoly. 

  That might be something that could make the SDP the dominant partner in the alliance as otherwise its always likely to be subordinate to the old Liberal Party which had much deeper roots and better infrastructure at the time.

[James G]

The point of the Liberals and their infrastructure is something I hadn't considered. Thinking on it, yes, they would have all the groundwork in-place with activists etc which the SDP never seemed to have. The Liberals would have had members of the Lords too which the SDP wouldn't have. So the SDP would struggle to subsume the Liberals as I envisaged.
Perhaps the Liberals could fall? A scandal?
The utter monster which was Cyril Smith was a big Liberal figure at the time. Could a scandal take him down and see a knock-on effect benefitting the SDP?

[stevep]

Dec 20, 2018 20:21:21 GMT James G said:

The point of the Liberals and their infrastructure is something I hadn't considered. Thinking on it, yes, they would have all the groundwork in-place with activists etc which the SDP never seemed to have. The Liberals would have had members of the Lords too which the SDP wouldn't have. So the SDP would struggle to subsume the Liberals as I envisaged.
Perhaps the Liberals could fall? A scandal?
The utter monster which was Cyril Smith was a big Liberal figure at the time. Could a scandal take him down and see a knock-on effect benefitting the SDP?

  It might have done, although it would depend on how the party responded at the time.  All the SDP really had going for it was the big names with cabinet experience that founded it and the fact they were former Labour party people and so could dislodge some people from loyalty to that party - although unfortunately not enough.   As such it was always more likely that, especially as time passed, the Liberals would be the dominant member of the alliance.  Although the SDP does seem to have passed on its centralised position to the current LibDems.