Liberal Democrats (UK)

Liberal Democrats
Abbreviation	Lib Dems
Leader	Ed Davey
Deputy Leader	Daisy Cooper
President	Mark Pack[1]
Lords Leader	Lord Newby
European Parliament Leader	Caroline Voaden
CEO	Mike Dixon[2]
Founded	3 March 1988; 36 years ago (1988-03-03)
Merger of	Liberal Party Social Democratic Party
Headquarters	8–10 Great George Street London SW1P 3AE[3]
Youth wing	Young Liberals
LGBT wing	LGBT+ Liberal Democrats
Membership (2023)	90,000+[4]: 13
Ideology	Liberalism[5] Social liberalism[5][6] Pro-Europeanism[7][8]
Political position	Centre[9][10][11][12][13] to centre-left[14][15]
European affiliation	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
International affiliation	Liberal International
Sister party	Alliance Party of Northern Ireland[16]
Colours	Yellow[17]
Slogan	"Build a Brighter Future."[18]
Anthem	"The Land"
Governing body	Federal Board
State parties	English Liberal Democrats Scottish Liberal Democrats Welsh Liberal Democrats
House of Commons[a]	72 / 650
House of Lords[19]	79 / 786
London Assembly	2 / 25
Scottish Parliament	4 / 129
Welsh Assembly	1 / 60
Local government[20]	3,095 / 18,646
Directly elected mayors	1 / 14
Website
www.libdems.org.uk

The Liberal Democrats, often shortened to Lib Dems, is a centrist political party in the United Kingdom that promotes liberal policies. It was started on 2 March 1988 by joining the Liberal Party, which had been a powerful political party in Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the Social Democratic Party, which had been formed from the Labour Party in 1981. The two parties had already been working together for seven years.

The Liberal Democrats are strong supporters of the European Union, as well as environmentalism and they are in favour of creating a new British House of Commons which is elected using proportional representation. They also disagree with Britain being a part of conflicts like the Iraq War.

The party has 72^[21] out of 650 seats in the House of Commons, 84^[22] out of 783 seats in the House of Lords, 16 out of 73 British seats in the European Parliament, 5 out of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 1 out of 60 seats in the Welsh Assembly. The party was in a coalition government with the Conservative Party and the former party leader Nick Clegg was the Deputy Prime Minister until the May 2015 general election.

In elections, the party usually gets the most votes in places like northern Scotland, south-west London, south-west England and mid-Wales. Members of the party are mostly more middle-class people who went to university.

1. ↑ "Breaking: The new Party President is..." LibDemVoice. 31 December 2019. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
2. ↑ "Mike Dixon" Archived 24 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Liberal Democrats. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
3. ↑ "Registration summary". Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
4. ↑ Burton, Matthew; Tunnicliffe, Richard (29 April 2023). "Liberal Democrats website". UK Parliament House of Commons Library. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Nordsieck, Wolfram (2017). "United Kingdom". Parties and Elections in Europe. Archived from the original on 11 October 2012. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
6. ↑ Hans Slomp (2011). Europe, A Political Profile: An American Companion to European Politics [2 volumes]: An American Companion to European Politics. ABC-CLIO. p. 343. ISBN 978-0-313-39182-8. Archived from the original on 24 January 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
7. ↑ "Brexit". Liberal Democrats. 17 April 2018. Archived from the original on 4 September 2017. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
8. ↑ Elgot, Jessica (28 May 2017). "Tim Farron: Lib Dems' pro-European strategy will be proved right". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 September 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2017.
9. ↑ Mark Kesselman; Joel Krieger; William A. Joseph (2018). Introduction to Comparative Politics: Political Challenges and Changing Agendas. Cengage Learning. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-337-67124-8. Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 4 December 2018.
10. ↑ "Britain's anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats name Jo Swinson as new leader". Reuters. 22 July 2019. Archived from the original on 27 July 2019. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
11. ↑ "Centrism Panel". The Oxford Union. Archived from the original on 19 October 2019. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
12. ↑ Warry, Richard (15 May 2017). "Guide to the parties: Liberal Democrats". BBC News. Archived from the original on 21 September 2019. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
13. ↑ "Lib Dems aim for centrist voters with tax platform". Financial Times. 13 March 2016. Archived from the original on 19 February 2017. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
14. ↑ Daddow, Oliver; Jones, Bill; Norton, Philip (2018). "Chapter 5 – Political ideas: the major parties". Politics UK (9th ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781134856893.
15. ↑ Alistair Clark (2012). Political Parties in the UK. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 86–93. ISBN 978-0-230-36868-2. Archived from the original on 24 January 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
16. ↑ "Sister Parties". Liberal Democrats. Archived from the original on 31 July 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
17. ↑ "Style guide". Liberal Democrats. 23 March 2017. Archived from the original on 7 February 2018. Retrieved 5 February 2018.
18. ↑ "Liberal Democrats". Archived from the original on 4 September 2017. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
19. ↑ "Lords by party and type of peerage". UK Parliament. August 2014. Archived from the original on 12 June 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
20. ↑ "Open Council Data UK – compositions councillors parties wards elections". Open Council Data. Archived from the original on 30 September 2017. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
21. ↑ UK Election Results 2024 Retrieved 11th July 2024.
22. ↑ "Lords membership". Retrieved 21 July 2023.