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David Owen has spent the last 60 years at the heart of British politics. After becoming a Labour MP in 1966 and serving as foreign secretary under Jim Callaghan from 1977-1979 he became disillusioned with the direction of the increasingly Left-wing Labour Party. Owen co-founded the Social Democratic Party and went on to lead it twice. In the 1990s, he was an EU peace negotiator in the former Yugoslavia and co-authored the consequential Vance-Owen Peace Plan. He joins UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers to talk about his life in politics, the ideological shifts of the recent decades and the future of the British Left.
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SubscribeI heard this interview with fascination and nostalgia. I was one of those very young enthusiasts for the SDP back in 1981/2 and became Student Union President as an SDP candidate. We thought we were the vanguard of something new and exciting.
David Owen came and spoke on campus with me as host, and he was irascible but completely fantastic. He was straight, to the point and fascinated by what we all thought. Nothing phased him, and he was the kind of no nonsense, couldn’t give a f*ck about what people thought about him, leader we all wanted and needed.
The only car we could get to pick him up from the station was an old tiny Renault, driven by my friend who’d had a rugby accident the day before and whose neck was in plaster. He couldn’t look right or left, so David Owen in the front seat (naturally, he was the VIP) had to tell him if any car was coming either way. When he first sat down in the car, and realised the situation, the former Foreign Secretary looked a little concerned but quickly got on with it and told us how he hated all the flummery of high office. With his briefcase on his knees, he directed the driver flawlessly.
When he arrived, we’d lined up local SDP activists to have lunch with him before the talk. He said a polite hello then said he had to dictate a speech to his secretary. All we had available were payphones, without enough 10ps for such a call. When I told him he could reverse the charges he looked at me in wonder, we did this and he exclaimed to his secretary ‘I’ve reversed the charges! How interesting!’
We got him a taxi back to the station.
I loved this interview because you recognised that he is one of a few totally original thinkers who say it as they see it. He wrote a paper decades ago calling for a two tier EU with the UK and others on the outside and the core on the inside, to reflect different aspirations and situations. If he’d been listened to, Brexit would have never happened and we’d have rubbed along well.