Member-only story
What Next for Britain’s Liberal Democrats?
Obscured in the triumph of Boris Johnson’s Tories and the tragic defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the 2019 general election was the simply abysmal result for the Liberal Democrats. A party of government just five years ago, they used to have around 50 seats in the British Parliament. In 2019, they actually lost a seat and now have a paltry 11 MPs. It’s not so much the one-seat loss that made for such a terrible evening for the Lib Dems, it was the high expectations, from themselves and others, that existed until just a few weeks before election day.
Now I’m very much not a Liberal Democrat and the internet certainly doesn’t need another badly thought out piece from someone telling another political party or ideology what is wrong with them (though we could all do with writers and journalists who admit their own bias). I could have written about why I disagree with the Lib Dems, but this isn’t that piece. I only write this because there’s a dearth of coverage on the subject and the political observer in me thinks it’s kind of interesting.
Does it matter?
Well, that’s for you to decide. But it does matter for the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. The Lib Dems have regularly had 1 in 13 seats in the British Parliament and around 20% of the national vote. The strategies that the big two parties employ for…
