The New Party was a neoliberal political party in the United Kingdom active between 2003 and 2010. The party described itself as "a party of economic liberalism, political reform and internationalism". It supported a smaller role for the state, a significant reduction in bureaucracy, renegotiation with the European Union and a strengthening of the special relationship with the United States.
The party was founded as the Scottish People's Alliance, standing at the 2003 Scottish Parliamentary Elections and receiving 7,718 votes (0.4%). The New Party did not stand in the 2005 general election.
History
Founding
The New Party has its origins in the initiative A New Party for Britain launched in late 2002, at a time when speculation about the possibility of a split in the UK Conservative Party was rife, during the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith. Before the launch, the party announced in January 2003 that it planned to scrap the Scottish Parliament, and it was decried by David McLetchie, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, as "fascist and undemocratic." The party was officially launched on 14 March 2003, when the party was founded under the name , with funerals businessman Howard Hodgson as its spokesman. The launch was timed to coincide with the Conservative Party Spring Conference the next day in Harrogate. Senior figures included Jenny Ungless, Iain Duncan Smith's former chief of staff, Charlotte Kenyon, a former Conservative Party press officer, and Mark Adams, a former Conservative Party official. The head of policy in Scotland was Bruce Skivington.
Scottish Parliament elections
The initial policy programme of the party had two main planks: direct democracy, with all legislation subject to popular referendum; and Universal Benefit, a direct payment from the state to every citizen as a replacement for the current benefits system. A reduction of the voting age to 16 was also proposed. Taxes would be cut by 3p. The pledge to scrap the Scottish parliament was dropped, but the party pledged to sell the Holyrood Scottish Parliament Building, and to reduce the number of parliamentarians, in Holyrood, Westminster and an all-elected Lords. Alan Cochrane in the Daily Telegraph commented that "the Scottish People's Alliance appears to offer a mish-mash of policies, which are for the most part half-baked – but not all that more so than many of the offerings from parties of much longer standing. And if they get their act together in time they might well appeal. Their most immediate problem appears to be that they have not got their act together in anything like enough time."
The party decided to contest the Scottish Parliamentary Election in May 2003, fielding 16 candidates. However, the party received a small proportion of the vote and won no seats. This was despite the fact that two of the Peoples Alliance candidates, Lyndsay McIntosh and Keith Harding, were outgoing Conservative Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). They had defected after being ranked further down the Conservative list for the election.
The New Party
Disappointed with its performance after spending £188,889 on the election, the party was relaunched in October 2003 with a revamped manifesto (direct democracy and Universal Benefit were dropped) and a revised statement of philosophy and principles, under the name 'The New Party'.
The party took no part in the 2004 European Parliament Elections. At the end of 2004, United Kingdom Independence Party MEP Robert Kilroy-Silk approached the New Party with a view to becoming leader. The executive declined 5 to 4, and several senior members of the New Party subsequently departed to join Kilroy-Silk's Veritas party at its launch in February 2005, including policy director Jonathan Lockhart, Richard Vass, the first party chairman of Veritas, and Patrick Eston, Kilroy-Silk's successor as leader.
The New Party did not contest the 2005 General Election.
In 2007 a member and two times local election candidate for the New Party, Stewart Dimmock, with backing from Viscount Monckton, the author of the party's first manifesto, launched a partly successful court case to seek to prevent the showing of the film An Inconvenient Truth in UK schools claiming that the film is political rather than scientific in nature. The court ruled that the film could be shown in schools only if teachers pointed out nine errors.
In July 2008 David Pinder, the national spokesman, became the party's first UK parliamentary candidate at the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, polling 135 votes.
In August 2009 Richard Vass was named leader, declaring the party's intention to contest the 2010 General Election.
