Liberal Democrats (UK)

The subject of this article is participating in the 2024 general election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 4 July, and has had no MPs in the House of Commons since Parliament was dissolved on 30 May. Some parts of this article may be out of date during this period. Please feel free to improve this article (but note that updates without valid and reliable references will be removed) or discuss changes on the talk page.

Liberal Democrats
Abbreviation	Lib Dems
Leader	Ed Davey
Deputy Leader	Daisy Cooper
President	Mark Pack
Lords Leader	Richard Newby
Chief Executive	Mike Dixon
Founded	3 March 1988; 36 years ago (1988-03-03)
Merger of	Liberal Party Social Democratic Party
Headquarters	1 Vincent Square, Westminster, London, England[1]
Youth wing	Young Liberals
Women's wing	Liberal Democrat Women
Overseas wing	Lib Dems Abroad
LGBT wing	LGBT+ Liberal Democrats
Membership (2023)	90,000+[2]
Ideology	Liberalism (British) Social liberalism Pro-Europeanism
Political position	Centre to centre-left
European affiliation	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
International affiliation	Liberal International
Northern Irish affiliation	Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
Colours	Yellow[3]
Slogan	"For a Fair Deal"[4]
Anthem	"The Land"
Conference	Liberal Democrat Conference
Governing body	Federal Board
Devolved or semi-autonomous branches	English Liberal Democrats Scottish Liberal Democrats Welsh Liberal Democrats Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats London Liberal Democrats
House of Commons	Parliament dissolved
House of Lords	79 / 784
Scottish Parliament	4 / 129
Senedd	1 / 60
London Assembly	2 / 25
Directly elected mayors	1 / 14
Councillors[nb][5]	3,095 / 18,646
Website
libdems.org.uk
Politics of the United Kingdom Political parties Elections ^Councillors of local authorities in England (including 25 aldermen of the City of London) and Scotland, principal councils in Wales and local councils in Northern Ireland.

The Liberal Democrats (often referred to as the Lib Dems) are a political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1988. The third-largest UK political party, they have 15 members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 84 members of the House of Lords, four Members of the Scottish Parliament, one member in the Welsh Senedd, and over 3,000 local council seats. The Liberal Democrat Conference formulates party policy.

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.^[6] However, the party has gained hundreds more seats on local councils under the leadership of Ed Davey, being especially successful in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 local elections. Davey is the party's first leader since Ashdown in the 1990s to win four by-elections in the space of one Parliament.

A centrist^[7] to centre-left^[8] 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^[9] 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 has been described as “progressive”,^[10][11][12] and is internationalist and pro-European,^[13] 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 middle-class professionals 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.