Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. The party has 11 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 91 members of the House of Lords, five Members of the Scottish Parliament and one member in each of the Welsh Parliament and the London Assembly. It formed a coalition government of the United Kingdom with the Conservative Party from 2010–2015. It is also currently in coalition with the Labour Party in the devolved Welsh government, and has also formed coalitions with Labour in Scotland.

In 1981, an electoral alliance was established between the Liberal Party, a group which was the direct descendant of 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 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. Under the leadership of Nick Clegg, 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 damaged the Lib Dems' electoral prospects with the party expecting to make a major loss in the 2015 election.

In 2015 the party elected Elaine Little-Brown as it's leader and Josh Harvey as it's deputy leader.