[1] Its most identifiable leaders were Vernon Cracknell (1963-70), who served just one term in parliament, and the household name Bruce Beetham, who rebuilt the party into a significant political force.

[4] Roly Marks had stood as a monetary reform candidate on behalf of the Real Democracy Movement in the Wanganui electorate in 1943, and was later made a life member of the League.

Maurice Hayes stood for the Waimate electorate on behalf of the Social Credit Association in the 1951 election, receiving 374 votes and coming third.

The following year, a leadership contest between Cracknell and another prominent Social Credit member, John O'Brien, ended in disaster, with brawling between supporters of each candidate.

O'Brien was eventually victorious, but his blunt and confrontational style caused him to lose his position after only a short time in office.

Despite a relatively strong showing, Social Credit failed to win any seats, a fact that some blamed on the rise of the new Values Party.

The Bill was criticised by some of the more extreme Social Credit supporters, who claimed that it was too weak, but was nevertheless strongly promoted in parliament by Beetham.

The Bill quickly failed, although this was not particularly unexpected – it had been put forward primarily for the purpose of drawing attention, not because Beetham believed it would succeed.

During that parliamentary term, Social Credit's support was damaged by a deal between Beetham and National Party Prime Minister Robert Muldoon.

To make matters worse, Muldoon did not deliver on many of his pledges, depriving Social Credit of any significant victories with which to mitigate its earlier setback.

Knapp retained his East Coast Bays seat, and another Social Credit candidate, Neil Morrison, won Pakuranga.

It was from this election that the term "Crimplene Suit and Skoda Brigade" was coined for Social Credit (by defeated National Party Pakuranga MP Pat Hunt).

In 1988, Knapp and a group of other Democrats were involved in a protest at parliament to highlight the Labour government's abandonment on its election promise to hold a referendum on the first-past-the-post electoral system.

In 1986, the year after the party was renamed, Bruce Beetham was removed from the leadership of the Democrats and replaced by Neil Morrison.

It is believed that changing the name of the party was a historic mistake and a major cause in the subsequent decline of support.

This resulted in the Democrats joining NewLabour, the Greens and Māori-based party Mana Motuhake in forming the Alliance, a broad left-wing coalition group.

Many Democrats believed that their views were not being incorporated into Alliance party policy, particularly as regards the core economic doctrine of social credit.

[15] In June 2018, the party voted to change its name back to Social Credit after Chris Leitch was elected leader.

C. H. Douglas, the founder of the social credit movement, toured New Zealand in 1934 and expounded his view that Jews were involved in a global conspiracy to control finance.

[21] Social Credit, along with the Department of Internal Affairs, published From Europe to New Zealand: An Account of Our Continental European Settlers by Eric Butler and R.A Lochore, which repeated Jewish financial conspiracy claims.

[22] In the 1980 East Coast Bays by-election, the Labour Party attempted to discredit Social Credit with a pamphlet that set out Major Douglas’s antisemitic views.

[7][23][24] The encyclopedia Te Ara states that the antisemitism of Social Credit ended in the 1970s with the election of leader Bruce Beetham who was more liberal.

[21] In the late 1970s the party became concerned about infiltration by the anti-semitic League of Rights and ejected members with racist views.

[25][26] Professor Paul Spooney stated that antisemitic sentiment was "largely irrelevant" by the 1970s, but remained present until 1984 when Beetham ejected party members who believed in an international financial Jewish conspiracy.