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The Liberal Democrats (often referred to as the Lib Dems) are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom.[10][11][12][13][14]

The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The two parties had formed the electoral SDPLiberal Alliance for seven years prior. The Liberal Party had been in existence for 129 years and in power under leaders such as Gladstone, Asquith and Lloyd George. Liberal Reforms led to the creation of the British welfare state. In the 1920s, the Labour Party replaced the Liberals as the largest opponent of the Conservative Party. The SDP split from Labour in 1981 because of the latter's move to the left.[15][16]

Nick Clegg was elected leader in 2007. At the 2010 general election, the Liberal Democrats won 57 seats, making them the third-largest party in the House of Commons behind the Conservatives with 307 and Labour with 258.[17] No party having an overall majority, the Liberal Democrats joined a coalition government with the Conservative Party, with Clegg becoming Deputy Prime Minister and other Liberal Democrats taking up ministerial positions.[18] At the 2015 general election, the party was reduced to eight Members of Parliament and Clegg resigned as leader.[19]Tim Farron won the subsequent leadership election.[20]

The party supports constitutional and electoral reform,[21]progressive taxation,[22]environmentalism,[23]human rights laws,[24]banking reform[25] and civil liberties.[26]

The opening line to the preamble of the Liberal Democrats constitution is "The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity."[27] Most commentators describe the party as centrist. In 2011 party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said "But we are not on the left and we are not on the right. We have our own label: Liberal."[28]

There are two main strands of distinct ideology within the party, social liberals and the economic liberals, more commonly known as Orange Bookers. The social liberals were seen as being the more traditionally centre-left end of the party with Orange Bookers being more towards the centre. The principal difference between the two is that the Orange Bookers tend to support greater choice and competition and as such aiming to increase social mobility through increasing economic freedom and opportunity for those with more disadvantaged backgrounds, whereas the social liberals were more commonly associated with directly aiming to increase equality of outcome through state means. Correspondingly, Orange Bookers tended to favour cutting taxes for the poorest in order to increase opportunity, contrasting with social liberals, who would rather see higher spending on the disadvantaged to reduce income inequality.[29]

Being an Orange Booker and a social liberal within the party are not mutually exclusives. David Laws, one of the most economically liberal MPs in the party, said in Parliament "I am grateful to my Hon. friend for his kind comments about Gladstonian Liberalism. I hope that this is not only Gladstonian Liberalism, but liberalism tinged with the social liberalism about which my party is so passionate."[30] Indeed, the Orange Book, to which the term refers, discusses the need for a more complete liberalism for the party, more fully supporting the liberalism as a whole including social liberalism.

The social liberalism in the party stemmed from the start of the 20th-century when the Liberal party were bringing about many reforms, known as Liberal reforms, which are often viewed as the creation of the modern public welfare system in the UK. A major part of creating the liberal welfare reforms was taken by David Lloyd George, who later went on to become Prime Minister. They were also influenced by William Beveridge, who is credited with drafting further advancements of the welfare state, especially the National Health Service (NHS), and social liberal economist John Maynard Keynes. In February 2009, many social liberals founded the Social Liberal Forum, an internal party pressure group, to pursue social liberal policies within the party.

In a poll of Liberal Democrat members on 30 April 2011, 64% classed themselves as social liberal with 35% counting themselves as economic liberals. Other affiliations high on the list were progressive with 65%, social democrat 34%, 45% centre-left, 60% internationalist, 44% radical, 41% green.[31]

In December 2011, in a speech to the Demos think tank and the Open Society Foundation Clegg put forward his definition of the three main political traditions in Britain, saying:

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Liberal Democrats - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia