In UK politics, the Gang of Four was a breakaway group of four Labour politicians who founded the Social Democratic Party in 1981, [1] including two sitting Labour MPs and a former deputy leader of the party.
The term Gang of Four is a reference to the political faction of four Chinese Communist Party officials who came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were accused of attempting to seize power following the death of Mao Zedong. [2]
Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins and David Owen [3] proposed a group called the Council for Social Democracy, which ended up becoming the Social Democratic Party. [1] Their first public move was the Limehouse Declaration, named after the house in Limehouse where David Owen lived, and where the group met. [4]
The Gang of Four were followed by a score of other Labour MPs. [5]
| Name (Birth–death) | Portrait | Constituency | Previous office(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) |  | Glasgow Hillhead from 1982 | Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (1970–1972) Chancellor of the Exchequer (1967–1970) Home Secretary (1965–1967, 1974–1976) Minister of Aviation (1964–1965) |
| David Owen (born 1938) |  | Plymouth Devonport | Foreign Secretary (1977–1979) Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (1976–1977) Minister of State for Health and Social Security (1974–1976) Under-Secretary of State for the Navy (1968–1970) |
| Bill Rodgers (born 1928) |  | Stockton-on-Tees | Transport Secretary (1976–1979) Minister of State for Defence (1974–1976) Minister of State for the Treasury (1969–1970) Minister of State for Trade (1968–1969) Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (1964–1967) Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1967–1968) |
| Shirley Williams (1930–2021) |  | Crosby from November 1981 | Education Secretary and Paymaster General (1976–1979) Prices and Consumer Secretary (1974–1976) Minister of State of Home Affairs (1969–1970) Minister of State for Education and Science (1967–1969) Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Housing and Local Government (1966–1967) |
In March 2017, the three then-living members of the SDP Gang of Four all said Jeremy Corbyn should step down as leader before the next general election originally scheduled for 2020 under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. In the 2017 general election, Labour under Corbyn again finished as the second-largest party in parliament, but the party increased their share of the popular vote to 40%, resulting in a net gain of 30 seats and a hung parliament. [6]
In 2019, The Independent Group were described as similar to the Gang of Four, [7] which was backed by Bill Rodgers. [8]
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of the Labour Party in 1945, with a majority of 144 seats and the first of two consecutive landslide victories.
David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 to 1979, and later led the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He was a Member of Parliament over 26 years from 1966 to 1992.
William Thomas Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank, is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 1976 to 1979, and was one of the 'Gang of Four' of senior British Labour Party politicians who defected to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He subsequently helped to lead the SDP into the merger that formed the Liberal Democrats in 1988, and later served as that party's leader in the House of Lords between 1997 and 2001.
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. Corbyn sits in the House of Commons as an independent, having had the whip suspended in October 2020.
Margaret Ann Coffey is a British politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Stockport from 1992 to 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, she defected to form Change UK.
Michael John Gapes is a British former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Ilford South from 1992 to 2019.
Kevan David Jones is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Durham since 2001. He served as a defence minister under Gordon Brown, and resigned as a shadow defence minister in January 2016 in protest against a front bench reshuffle by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The Limehouse Declaration was a statement issued on 25 January 1981 by four senior British Labour politicians, all MPs or former MPs and Cabinet Ministers: Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams. It became known as the Limehouse Declaration as it was made near David Owen's London home in Limehouse. The four were known as the Gang of Four.
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) formed in 1988 was a political party in the United Kingdom led by David Owen, which lasted for only two years. A successor party to the original Social Democratic Party (SDP), it was known informally as the 'continuing' SDP.
The 1982 Social Democratic Party leadership election was called following the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The party had been founded by the Gang of Four the previous year and had rapidly built up its membership, but lacked a formal leadership structure. Each of the Gang of Four was regarded as coequal leader.
Matthew Toby Perkins is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Chesterfield since 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he has served as Shadow Minister for Rural Affairs since 2023. He previously served as Shadow Minister for Apprentices and Lifelong Learning from April 2020 to September 2023 and was Shadow Minister for Small Business under Ed Miliband and Shadow Minister for the Armed Forces under Jeremy Corbyn.
Lilian Rachel Greenwood is a British Labour Party politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nottingham South since 2010, and the Shadow Minister for Arts, Heritage and Civil Society since 2023.
Owen Smith is a former Labour Party politician and subsequently a British lobbyist, who has been the UK government relations director for pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb since 2020. Smith was Member of Parliament (MP) for Pontypridd from 2010 to 2019.
Sarah Deborah Champion is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Rotherham since 2012.
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was a centrist to centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. The party supported a mixed economy, electoral reform, European integration and a decentralised state while rejecting the possibility of trade unions being overly influential within the industrial sphere. The SDP officially advocated social democracy, but its actual propensity is evaluated as close to social liberalism.
Peter Kyle is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology since 2023. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hove since 2015.
Melanie Onn is a British former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Great Grimsby from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Labour Party, she previously served as Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Commons from September 2015 to June 2016 and Shadow Minister for Housing from July 2017 to March 2019. At the 2019 general election, she lost the seat to the Conservative candidate Lia Nici-Townend.
Momentum is a British left-wing political organisation which has been described as a grassroots movement supportive of the Labour Party; since January 2017, all Momentum members must be members of the party. It was founded in 2015 by Jon Lansman, Adam Klug, Emma Rees and James Schneider after Jeremy Corbyn's successful campaign to become Labour Party leader and it was reported to have between 20,000 and 30,000 members in 2021.
The Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn began when Jeremy Corbyn was elected as Leader of the UK Labour Party in September 2015, following the resignation of Ed Miliband after Labour's defeat at the 2015 general election. Disillusioned by a lack of a left-wing voice in the 2015 leadership contest, Corbyn stood on an anti-austerity platform. Of the candidates who stood, Corbyn received the fewest parliamentary nominations. Many who nominated him said they had done so not to support his candidacy, but to widen the debate by including a socialist voice. However, Corbyn soon became the frontrunner and was elected with a landslide of 59%.
The Independent Group for Change, also known as Change UK, was a British centrist, pro-European Union political party, founded in February 2019 and dissolved ten months later, after all its MPs lost their seats at the 2019 general election. Its principal aim was a second withdrawal referendum on European Union membership, in which it would campaign to remain in the EU. On economic issues it expressed a commitment to the social market economy.
It is by no means necessary to assume that those in the mass electorate who followed the lead of the "Gang of Four" and the score of other former Labour MPs shared their policy views.
