Robert Maclennan

**Robert Adam Ross Maclennan, Baron Maclennan of Rogart**, PC (26 June 1936 – 18 January 2020) was a British Liberal Democrat politician and life peer.

He was the last leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), serving during the negotiations that led to its merger with the Liberal Party in 1988. He then became joint interim leader of the new party, known as the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD) and later as the Liberal Democrats. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1966 to 2001, when he was elevated to the House of Lords.

## Early Life

MacLennan's father, Sir Hector MacLennan, was a renowned gynaecologist and obstetrician. His mother, Isabel Margaret (née Adam), was a physician and public health activist. He was the brother of actor and director David MacLennan, actress and writer Elizabeth MacLennan, and Kenneth MacLennan.

He was educated at Glasgow Academy; Balliol College, Oxford; Trinity College, Cambridge; and Columbia University, New York City. He was called to the bar in 1962 at Gray's Inn and before entering parliament practised as an international lawyer based in London.

## Labour Career

He became Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Caithness and Sutherland in 1966, and serving until 1997; and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross after boundary changes, from 1997 to 2001.

He was first elected as a member of the Labour Party and served as a junior minister in the Labour government of 1974–1979.

## SDP Career

In 1981, Maclennan was one of 28 Labour MPs who followed Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams, and Bill Rodgers in splitting from the Labour Party to create the SDP. Maclennan designed the structure of the new party, which, supposedly learning the lessons of Labour’s system, excluded the membership from making party policy.

He was one of the few SDP MPs to keep their seats in the 1983 general election.

### Leadership and the Merger

Maclennan became leader of the SDP in 1988 and oversaw the merger of the SDP and the Liberal Party, also serving as joint interim leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats

Initially Maclennan was opposed to a merger, as was Owen, who resigned as leader in protest at the prospect. Other key SDP figures, including Rodgers, Jenkins and Williams, favoured a link up with the Liberals, but as they were no longer MPs there was no experienced person in the House of Commons to head the party in merger talks. They were therefore surprised and delighted when Maclennan made a U-turn and declared that he would now back the merger.

As the new leader of the SDP he agreed the merger details with the Liberal party leader David Steel and also prepared, with the help of some young aides, what was widely regarded as a disastrous founding policy statement for the Lib Dems – a document so widely disparaged on all sides that it led, in part, to Steel’s resignation

## Post-SDP Career

After the SDP and Liberal Party merged, Maclennan served as a front bench spokesman for the Liberal Democrats and as their president between 1994 and 1998.

He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1997.

Maclennan retired at the 2001 general election but was raised to the House of Lords, and created a life peer as **Baron Maclennan of Rogart**, *of Rogart in Sutherland*. He was the party's Cabinet Office and Scotland spokesman in the House of Lords until 2015.

## Personal life and death

Maclennan married Helen Noyes (née Cutter), an American teacher, in 1968, and they had two children, a son and a daughter in addition to a son from her previous marriage.

Maclennan died on 16 January 2020, at age 83.