Foreword

Summary

This book is written to grapple with the serious challenges the country faces in the coming decades and is inspired by the example of those who wrote the Limehouse Declaration 40 years ago. We have invited contributors to reflect on these challenges, and to propose realistic solutions. We have also encouraged them to think boldly and feel free to disagree with each other.

January 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of the Limehouse Declaration and the launch of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) that followed. Through the 1980s, the SDP offered the most coherent ideas to challenge Thatcherism; these became the intellectual bedrock for the best of New Labour. They were also central to the ethos of the Liberal Democrats, which was formed from a merger of the SDP and the Liberals.

The Social Democrat Group was formed in 2015 to promote this social democratic heritage within the Liberal Democrats and to build on these ideas to address the challenges of the future. These include appalling levels of poverty, the aftermath of our exit from the European Union (EU) and the rise of populists, who fill digital platforms with intolerance and have an increasing voice in mainstream media.

This collection of essays is an important part of that ongoing work. We are enormously grateful to the leading politicians who have produced the excellent essays that make up this book.

While the Social Democrat Group is a Liberal Democrat group, there are many social democrats in other parties and none, such as Roger Liddle, one of the contributors to this book. The group has always sought to engage with them. If this is you, this book is for you too.

The world has changed dramatically since the Limehouse Declaration set out the underlying principles of a new party. It is extraordinary to think that words written in a world with only three television channels and no smartphones, and that was closer to the Second World War than today, should be relevant today.

Social democracy has many definitions. In our view, it combines:

• • a determination to pursue policies that will work;

• • a commitment to fight for the vulnerable; and

• • a belief that for democracy to thrive, policies must work for everyone, including the affluent.