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Notes -
To put the SDP in some perspective for outsiders to UK politics: they are the descendents of a centre-left breakaway from the Labour party in 1981, who largely dissolved in the late 1980s. Somehow, they managed to survive through a nuclear winter and have remerged a little as a party for people who like Brexit/social conservativism, but who are more economically centrist/left wing than the Tories or Reform. They are one of the tardigrade parties in the UK: no matter the hostility of the environment and their tiny size within it, they seem to just survive.
The 1st SDP didn't dissolve - it merged with the Liberals in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats. The merger was supported by a majority of the SDP members in accordance with the SDP rulebook, so the Liberal Democrats are the legal successors of the original SDP.
The minority of the SDP who opposed the merger included David Owen (who had been leader until he resigned in 1987 after it became clear that the membership supported merger in principle, to allow someone who supported the merger to handle negotiations) and 3 of the 5 SDP MPs. They set up what was legally a new party, but claimed to be the spiritual successor of the 1st SDP and used the same name and logo. (In those days the UK had no laws about the misuse of party names and logos). But the 2nd SDP didn't have enough grassroots members to run effective campaigns, and consistently did worse than the Liberal Democrats in by-elections. David Owen and the executive committee disbanded the 2nd SDP after they got fewer votes than the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (which is as silly as it sounds) in the 1990 Bootle by-election. (The three SDP MPs sat as independents until the 1992 election, when Owen went into the House of Lords and the other two MPs narrowly failed to be re-elected as independents.)
The tiny number of SDP grassroots members who objected to this set up a 3rd SDP (also using the name and logo, despite being a legally unconnected organisation), which is the tardigrade party that suddenly started getting headlines again over Brexit. Because they were using it when registration of political parties came in in 1998, this group now control the SDP name and logo, which means that people who don't know better think they are the legitimate successor.
Since 1990, Lord Owen has consistently taken a position on Britain's relationship with the EU which is at the Eurosceptic end of the Overton window (for example, he was prominent in the cross-party campaign against the UK joining the Euro), only coming out in favour of Brexit after the referendum was called. He has nothing whatsoever to do with the 3rd SDP.
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