Liberal Democrats (UK)

In 1981, an electoral alliance was established between the Liberal Party, a group which descended from the 18th-century Whigs, and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a splinter group from the Labour Party. In 1988, the parties merged as the Social and Liberal Democrats, adopting their present name just over a year later. Under the leadership of Paddy Ashdown and later Charles Kennedy, the party grew during the 1990s and 2000s, focusing its campaigns on specific seats and becoming the third-largest party in the House of Commons. In 2010, under Nick Clegg's leadership, the Liberal Democrats were junior partners in David Cameron's Conservative-led coalition government in which Clegg served as Deputy Prime Minister. Although it allowed them to implement some of their policies, the coalition badly damaged the party's electoral standing and they lost 48 of their 56 MPs at the 2015 general election, which relegated them to fourth-largest party in the House of Commons. Under the leaderships of Tim Farron, Vince Cable and Jo Swinson, the party was refocused as a pro-Europeanist party opposing Brexit. Since 2015, the party has failed to recapture its pre-coalition successes, and a poor performance in the 2019 general election saw Swinson lose her seat.^[13] However, under the leadership of Ed Davey, the party has won hundreds more seats on local councils, being especially successful in the 2022 and 2023 local elections. Davey has also become the first leader since Paddy Ashdown in the 1990s to win 4 by-elections in the space of one Parliament.


A centrist^[14] to centre-left^[15] political party, the Liberal Democrats ideologically draw upon both liberalism and social democracy. Different factions have dominated the party at different times, each with its own ideological bent, some leaning towards the centre-left and others the centre. The party calls for constitutional reform, including a change from the first-past-the-post voting system to proportional representation. Emphasising stronger protections for civil liberties, the party promotes social-liberal approaches^[16] to issues like LGBT rights, drug liberalisation, education policy and criminal justice. It favours a market-based economy supplemented with social welfare spending. The party is internationalist and pro-European,^[17] and supported the People's Vote for the continued UK membership of the European Union and greater European integration, having previously called for adoption of the euro currency. The Lib Dems have promoted further environmental protections and opposed British military ventures like the Iraq War.


The Liberal Democrats are historically strongest in northern Scotland, south-west London, South West England, and mid Wales. Membership is primarily made up of professionals that belong within the middle-class (without the reliance on trade unions or collective bargaining) and the party's composition has a higher proportion of university educated members than the other major political parties of the United Kingdom. The party is a federation of the English, Scottish, and Welsh Liberal Democrats. The party is in a partnership with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, while still organising there. Internationally, the party is a member of the Liberal International and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, with its MEPs formerly affiliated to the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, until the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020.