Liberal Democrats (UK)
centrist political party in the United Kingdom / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
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[lower-alpha 1] | 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 |
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.