New Guardian Group CEO, Trevism provides a post-mortem on the legacy of Saunders16…

Alas, the tenure of Saunders16 is over. Many people have spent time gutter-sniping at his record in the Treasury and as SDP leader over the last 12 hours, with the usual spin monkeys and botch doctors all weighing in to have their say. I’m not going to do that. Saunders has faced far too much butchery and stab-knife-backery in the last day or two for that sort of article to have any real conclusive impact. Instead, I’m going to survey his records on its merits and achievements, as well as drawing from anecdotal experience to try and surmise why things seemed to fall apart this quickly.

My Experience with Saunders and the SDP:

Now, I first properly interacted with Saunders on a political level in the run up to the devolved elections. As a genuine progressive thinker, I had watched the growth of the Independent Social Democrats remarkably eagerly. I saw qualities in Saunders that I indeed saw in my fledgling days in Labour under the tuition of AlmightyWibble – young, driven and full of ideas – and I saw the potential for a future party of government in the ISDs, if he could attract the right people and hit the right tone with his ideas.

The rebrand of the ISDs to the SDP, along with the growing role of the Irish Parliamentary Party, saw us discuss things more. We realised we had a lot in common. Both pro-Europe, both big fans of liberal philosophy, both seeing the potential for progressive investment in the economy. With that in mind, we drew up plans for a deal which saw the IPP become the branch of the SDP in Northern Ireland. As the deal stood on day one, I had every belief that when the time came for me to hand over the Stormont reins, as it will, that the SDP would provide an ample setting for a replacement to flourish and grow.

The decline of that relationship is of course not immensely well-documented publicly, but I will say that the breakdown in relations between the SDP and the IPP was, for the most part, not the doing of SDP leadership. Instead, it was the rank and file membership of the Social Democratic Party who took uppance with some of the IPP’s ideas and our ability to reach across party lines to get things done. Backroom chats regularly became very toxic, with accusations that both myself and Alexa were prying for a malevolent political force away from the SDP being remarkably prevalent.

To the absolute credit of himself and those who stood by him, Saunders did not join in the dogpiles. He in fact took every opportunity through each major spat or feud to diffuse the situation and to haul those criticising IPP actions over the cobblers. I appreciate that can’t have been an easy thing for him to do, but to me it does exemplify that irrespective of whatever his own party members and former coalition partners may say, the former SDP leader is someone with good stead and decent principles, who is more than willing to stand up for those without a voice. I think everyone ought to respect him for that.

Of course, the relationship between myself and Saunders did sour as we began to drift apart, on the fault of both, admittedly. I had been completely sickened by SDP membership to the point that I had no intention of working with anyone in the party. Saunders was at the end of his tether with the situation and found an exit route for the IPP which damaged neither but provided no real leeway for a positive future relationship, at least not at first. But ultimately, you play with fire, you’re bound to get burned.

Why I feel the SDP collapse happened:

I think that the SDP was always a vessel doomed to fall apart in infighting and knife-in-back shenanigans. After all, this was a party brought together by the fact that they weren’t the other parties, rather than by distinct, succinct policy. You had a clear defined factional split between Saunders’ “wets” and the left of the party’s “drippings”, and ultimately that wasn’t going to be fruitful for anyone.

This manifested itself perfectly once the SDP entered Sunrise. Half the party wanted to align itself to the Classical Liberals, the others to Labour. It made things difficult because there was no overarching message present from the SDP, meaning that they couldn’t easily unite against either power bloc in Sunrise. This, of course, then translated into infighting and the decadent butchery which followed, in the form of the collective cabinet responsibility fiasco.

I will say that I cannot and will not defend events from within the Treasury – ableism isn’t a line anyone should cross, regardless of how fraught relations were. But I think it’s important to recognise that the SDP holding the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer made this the most dysfunctional Treasury in history. There was no united economic policy, they couldn’t decide whether tax cuts or tax raises were going to happen, contradictions led to accusations that Sunrise would unnecessarily accrue government debt and tensions quickly heightened into a state of fever pitch.

So that’s why the SDP collapsed. They took a big role too early into their tenure, seeing the power and grabbing it by the tips of their talons, only to see it fall away from them in the most Shakespearian political display in centuries.

Where do the SDP go from here?

Long story short: they don’t. In the coming weeks and months, factionalism will ravage the SDP carcass and tear it apart. MP after MP will jump ship, to Labour, the Lib Dems, the Classical Liberals or the People’s Movement. Sunrise will lose its majority. The SDP will die. You’ll probably see an independent group in the Commons which holds leverage over a weakened minority government. Progress on Brexit will be stifled, a piecemeal budget will be rejected.

Devolved budgets and block grants will be thrown into disarray, hyperausterity being the name of the game. Sunrise will go down in history as the biggest government to have an almighty fall from grace.

Ultimately, Britain will have completely shot its chance at progressive government for literal decades. It had the chance not to. It failed, miserably.