The Monster Raving Loonies are a desperately unfunny satirical party, who stand on joke policies like “having hop, skip and jump years as well as leap years.” Their most notable triumph came in the Bootle by-election of May 1990, in which they beat into sixth place a Social Democratic Party (SDP) which had just a few years earlier outpolled both Labour and the Tories.

This humiliation has been legendarized as the death-knell for the SDP, founded in 1981 by big beasts like Roy Jenkins (Home Secretary in Harold Wilson’s reforming Labour government) and David Owen (1977–79 Foreign Secretary). Briefly topping 50 percent in the polls, the SDP within a decade become a warning to whoever sought to break the two-party system.

Largely created by Labour splitters, the SDP is an obvious predecessor to The Independent Group formed this week — or the party they are due to found. Today an asset of Gemini A Ltd, this caucus of eight former Labour and three former Tory MPs are raising funds and organization to create a “third force” roughly along the lines of the Jenkins-Owen party.