Liberal Democrats (UK)

The Liberal Democrats, colloquially known as the Lib Dems, is a political party in the United Kingdom. Ideologically adhering to liberalism, it was founded in 1988. The party is based at Liberal Democrat Headquarters, which since September 2025 has been based at Buckingham Gate, in the Westminster area of Central London. The party's leader is Ed Davey. It is the third-largest party in the United Kingdom, with 72 members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons. It has 73 members of the House of Lords, 10 in the Scottish Parliament, 1 in the Welsh Senedd, and around 3,200 local council seats. The party holds a twice yearly Liberal Democrat Conference, at which policy is formulated. In contrast to its main opponents, the Lib Dems grant all members attending Conference the right to vote on policy, under a one member, one vote system. As well as voting in the Conference Hall, the party allows its members to vote online for its policies and leadership elections. Members are also free to join organisations representing strands of party thinking, such as Liberal Reform and Social Liberal Forum, and for those under 30 years, Young Liberals. 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 a year later. Under the leaderships of Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy, the party grew in the 1990s and 2000s, focusing its campaigns on specific seats and retained the third-largest party status in the House of Commons, although with significantly more seats than the predecessor Liberal Party. In the 1997 election, the Liberal Democrats doubled their seat count to 46. In 2010, under Nick Clegg's leadership, the Lib Dems were junior partners in the Conservative-led coalition government, in which Clegg served as deputy prime minister. Though it allowed the party to implement some of its policies, the coalition damaged its electoral standing; it lost 48 of its 56 MPs at the 2015 general election, which relegated it to fourth-largest party in the House of Commons. Under the leaderships of Tim Farron, Vince Cable and Jo Swinson, the party refocused as a pro-Europeanist party opposing Brexit. In the 2019 general election, the party garnered 11 % of the vote on an anti-Brexit platform, but this did not translate into seat gains. However, the party's success was renewed under the leadership of Ed Davey, winning hundreds of councillors and 72 MPs in the 2024 general election, its highest result since 1923, and resuming its status as the third largest party in the House of Commons. A centrist to centre-left party, the Lib Dems ideologically draw upon liberalism and social democracy. Different factions have dominated the party at different times, each with its own ideological bent. Some factions leaned towards the centre-left, while others were in the centre. The party is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE), and Liberal International. It calls for constitutional reform, including a change from first-past-the-post voting to proportional representation. Emphasising stronger protections for civil liberties, the party promotes social-liberal approaches to issues like LGBT rights, drug liberalisation, education and criminal justice. It favours a market-based economy supplemented with social welfare spending. The party has been described as progressive, and is internationalist and pro-European, and supported the People's Vote for UK membership of the European Union and greater European integration, having previously called for adoption of the euro. The Lib Dems have promoted further environmental protections and opposed British military ventures such as the Iraq War. The Lib Dems have historically been strongest in northern Scotland, south-west London, South West England, and mid Wales. Membership is primarily made up of middle-class professionals and has a higher proportion of university-educated members than other UK parties. The party is a federation of the English, Scottish, and Welsh Liberal Democrats, and is in a partnership with the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, while still organising there.