A party that aimed to ‘break the mould’ of British politics when it was created over 40 year ago is back in business, with a candidate in the Selby & Ainsty by-election.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was launched in 1981, by leading moderate Labour defectors David Owen, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams.

They were known as ‘the Gang of Four’ and despite the party being swallowed up by the 1988 merger with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats, a few supporters kept the flame burning over the decades.

Since 2018 it has reborn under the leadership of William Clouston, gaining councillors in Leeds and elsewhere, with supporters including Patrick O’Flynn, Rod Liddle and Giles Fraser.

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The SDP’s Selby & Ainsty candidate is John Waterston, a former Selby building society manager, who now runs the Cricketer’s Arms pub in the town centre.

The Scots-born 60-year-old father-of-two has lived in Selby half his life, running the town’s Bradford and Bingley Building Society before starting his own business as a financial and business advisor.

For five years, John was also manager of the York Cemetery Trust and he is also a former Chairman of Selby Round Table.

The graduate of Dundee University has a masters in English and History and says he has always been interested in policies.

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When William Clouston took over the SDP, John found their beliefs ‘chimed’ and he became active in it.

The arrival of GB News and Talk TV, who both readily offer the SDP a platform, also made the media and political landscape much more diverse.

The SDP still follows the same ‘Social Market’ economic model, combining left-leaning economics and a belief in ‘family, community and the nation.’

But today’s SDP is now pro-Brexit, rather than the pro-Brussels party of the Jenkins era, as “we are living in a different age,” John said.

He continued: “For too long, the main players have been indifferent to the fact that we are deindustrialising. We need to start making stuff instead of just buying stuff from someone.

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“If we start making stuff, we train people to make the stuff. We don’t have to import other people. Mass immigration is depressing wages, so as a nation we become poorer. That’s not a judgement on the people coming in, but a pure fact.”

As the country becomes more populated, GDP person declines, which John says worries him.

Such deindustrialisation also means a lower level of competence.

John added: “We don’t have the kind of skillset to build nuclear power stations, so we have to get them built by the French or the Chinese. These are the kind of things that bother me.”

John’s campaign will also focus on fighting crime through well-resourced pro-active policing; improving public transport, particularly local bus services, strengthening the local economy and supporting local sport and recreation initiatives for young people.