Liberal Democrats-Why do you exist?

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Because there's nobody to represent progressivism and pro-Europeanism. Corbyn and May are in the same sinking ship that is brexit. Also, the libDems have 12 seats. Are they supposed to auction them off or something?

“pro-Europeanism” was the Lib Dem mantra at this past general election and they failed to substantially increase their vote share, 80% of the electorate voted for parties which accept the Brexit consensus, if Eurofanaticism is your only defense of Lib Dem existence then that’s a pretty shocking indictment of the party’s utter irrelevance, they may as well auction those seats off

Reply 41

Arran90

Original post by Afcwimbledon2

Is that not because English politics is GB politics in the eye of the media, and how parliament is set-up

As far as the media are concerned, GB politics is England, Scotland, and Wales. If a party doesn't contest elections in all three regions then it is ineligible to be considered as a main party. The target audience of GB politics is England, Scotland, and Wales so Scottish people are disenfranchised by including the Green Party of England and Wales because it doesn't contest elections in Scotland. It's the same as residents of Surrey are disenfranchised by including the SNP which is why they are largely confined to Scottish politics.

Reply 42

Jammy Duel

Original post by litanietriste18

Failure to break through isn’t an excuse to pack up shop, otherwise they’d have done it decades ago.

I think a lib dem breakthrough shouldn't be seen as being one of the two main parties, their failure to adapt at the turn of the 20th century lost them that and their policies aren't ones that could lead to a breakthrough to return to the glory days of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries, a breakthrough should be seen as a return to the state of affairs of the 30 years to 2010 where they are a significant third party

Reply 43

Arran90

Original post by litanietriste18

Sadly you're right. Under FPTP it's an inevitability that the lib dems would have to join someone in a coalition if there was a hung parliament with them as a hue party. Only in proportional representation, where voters know a hung parliament is an inevitability, would the lib dems stand a chance.

Or would they? The Lib-Dems melted down in the 2014 Euro elections that was held under PR and ended up with just one MEP.

PR has the potential to eliminate much of the third alternative and tactical votes that the Lib-Dems receive under FPTP. Do we even need a third alternative party? If under PR other parties like the Greens, UKIP, BNP, The Yorkshire Party, National Health Action Party, and the English Democrats manage to elect MPs then does it matter if the Lib-Dems are reduced to 2 or 3 MPs or die altogether?

Reply 44

SWCoffee

The Orange Book is an influential piece of their thinking.

Lib Dems are in favor of liberty and either equality or market. If you speak to a social liberal, they say equality. If you speak to a capitalist liberal, they say market.

Labor are in favor of authority and equality. This is a change from market-focus under Blair.

Tories are in favor of authority and market.

That's my comparison.

Reply 45

Arran90

Original post by litanietriste18

I wouldn't call if pure PR. They got 6.6% of votes and 1 MEP out of 73 in the UK. Their counterpart in germany, the FDP, who also melted down completely, got 3 MEP's out of 96 off of 3.5% of votes, due to no % threshold and no regional divisions like in the UK. Regional divisions make it harder to meet the minimum vote to get an MEP, which is what screwed over the Libdems. Had there been a german system in the UK, they would currently have 5 MEP's.

How many Green Party MEPs would there have been?

Most people vote for the Green Party because of their policies. They don't vote for the Green Party because it is a third alternative.

PR lessens the need for a third alternative party compared with FPTP. It's possible that if PR was introduced for Westminster elections that the Greens will beat the Lib-Dems in England and Wales in terms of the popular vote.

Reply 46

Chief Wiggum

They do have a clear purpose at present - they want to stop Brexit.

(At least, they did at the last election. I presume that is still their position?)

Reply 47

That Bearded Man

Lib Dems have to target Tory seats - Labour are that awkward middle ground where Remainers can still vote for them. Lib Dems should look at kicking out Leavers

Reply 48

DJKL

They ought to act as a salutary lesson to the two current larger parties not to take their position for granted. Pretty sure in 1916 they were not thinking "we are going to take a pasting for the next 100 odd years", but what did they know; maybe our current government could learn a lesson from history.

Reply 49

Arran90

The Lib-Dems don't really know what party they want to be or who should be their target audience. They have derived their support from a variety of sources:

1.Classic liberals or proper liberals. The traditional support base but it is probably is quite small. There is also a Liberal Party which follows this ideology although it's anti-EU and it hasn't benefitted much from the meltdown of the Lib-Dems in 2015.

2. Middle of the road types. A lot of these people were originally attracted to the SDP in the 1980s then the Lib-Dems in the 1990s and 2000s. Paddy Ashdown was effective at making the Lib-Dems more of a middle of the road party rather than a classic liberal or radical party. Not all middle of the road types are pro-EU and it's probably safe to say that a sizeable fraction have changed their stance since the early 1990s so will no longer support a pro-EU party.

3. The Lib-Dems are to the left of Labour. This faction emerged under the NuLab government but following the ConDem coalition and Jeremy Corbyn taking over Labour it is as dead as a dodo.

4. Third alternatives. As described in post #25. This faction overlaps with middle of the road types.

5. Tactical voters. As described in post #27.

6. Europhiles with good reason. This is best viewed as pro-EU types who normally voted Labour or Conservative who have recently switched to the Lib-Dems for their position on the EU and Brexit rather than their other policies as opposed to them being longer standing Lib-Dem voters. They could well be a fairly diverse group when it comes to other issues.

7. Europhiles without good reason. Longer standing Lib-Dem voters who support the Lib-Dems for their position on the EU and Brexit without good reason other that it's the party policy. This faction overlaps with the classic liberals and the middle of the road types.