Scottish Liberal Democrats


The Scottish Liberal Democrats are a liberal, federalist political party in Scotland, a part of the UK Liberal Democrats. The party currently holds 5 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 4 of the 59 Scottish seats in the UK House of Commons.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats are one of the three state parties within the federal Liberal Democrats, the others being the Welsh Liberal Democrats and the English Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats do not contest elections in Northern Ireland.

Leaders

In keeping with its basis as a federation of organisations, the Scottish party also consists of a number of local parties, which are each distinct accounting units under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Local parties are predominantly responsible for the party's political campaigning and for selecting candidates for parliamentary and local authority elections.
There are also eight regional parties.

Administration

The party's headquarters are located in Edinburgh.
The conference is the highest decision-making body of the party on both policy and strategic issues. The day-to-day organisation of the party is the responsibility of the party's Executive Committee, which is chaired by the Convener of the party and includes the Leader, the Depute Leader and the President of the party, as well as the party Treasurer and the three Vice-Conveners. See below for the current office-bearers and all other members of the Party's three management committees. All party members vote every two years in internal elections to elect people to all the below positions, except Leader & Depute Leader.

Current party leadership, office bearers and committee members

The party employs a small team of staff at their HQ in Edinburgh.

Conferences

Like the Federal party, the Scottish party holds two conferences per year; a Spring Conference, and an Autumn Conference.

Associated organisations

Associated organisations generally seek to influence the direction of the party on a specific issue or represent a section of the party membership. The party has five associated organisations:
The Association of Scottish Liberal Democrat Councillors is a network of Liberal Democrat councillors and local campaigners across Scotland which works to support and develop Liberal Democrat involvement in Scottish Local Government.
Following the Local Council Election of May 2017, under the Single Transferable Vote system, 67 Liberal Democrats were elected, a drop of 3 on Local Council Election of May 2012.
A voluntary Executive Committee meets several times a year to run the organisation.
ASLDC works alongside Liberal Democrats in the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities where Cllr Peter Barrett is leader of the Lib Dem Group.

History

The Scottish Liberal Democrat party was formed by the merger of the Scottish Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party in Scotland, as part of the merger of the Liberal Party and SPD on 3 March 1988.
The party campaigned for the creation of a devolved Scottish Parliament as part of its wider policy of a federal United Kingdom. In the late 1980s and 1990s it and its representatives participated in the Scottish Constitutional Convention with the Scottish Labour Party, Scottish Green Party, trades unions and churches, and also campaigned for a "Yes-Yes" vote in the 1997 devolution referendum.

1999–2007: Coalition government with Labour

In the first elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the party won 17 seats. Following this, the party formed a coalition government with the Scottish Labour Party in the Scottish Executive. The then party leader, Jim Wallace, became Deputy First Minister of Scotland and Minister for Justice. He also served as acting First Minister on three occasions, during the illness and then later, the death of the first First Minister Donald Dewar and the following resignation of his successor Henry McLeish. This partnership was renewed in 2003 and Wallace became Deputy First Minister and Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning. On 23 June 2005, Nicol Stephen MSP succeeded Wallace as party leader and took over his positions in the Executive until the 2007 elections.
Prior to the partnership government being formed in 1999, the UK had only limited experience of coalition government. The party's participation attracted criticism for involving compromises to its preferred policies, although several of its manifesto pledges were adopted as government policy or legislation. These included changes to the arrangements for student contributions to higher education costs, free personal care for the elderly and changing the system of elections for Scottish local authorities to the single transferable vote, a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy.

2007–present: Opposition and electoral stagnation

In the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections, the party won one fewer seat than in the two previous Scottish elections: this was the first parliamentary election for 28 years in which the party's parliamentary strength in Scotland was reduced. This experience led to some criticism of the party's election strategy and its leader. Although it was arithmetically possible to form a majority coalition with the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party, the party refused to participate in coalition negotiations because of a disagreement over the SNP's policy of a referendum on Scottish independence, and sat as an opposition party in the Parliament.
On 2 July 2008, Nicol Stephen resigned as the party leader. The former deputy leader Michael Moore MP served as acting leader of the party until Tavish Scott MSP was elected party leader on 26 August 2008, winning 59% of the votes cast in a contest with parliamentary colleagues Ross Finnie and Mike Rumbles.
At the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections, the party lost all its mainland constituencies, retaining only the two constituencies of Orkney and Shetland. It also secured three List MSPs. This was by far the party's worst electoral performance since the re-establishment of a Scottish parliament in 1999. At the 2014 European Parliament elections, the party lost its only MEP.
At the 2015 general election, the party lost 10 of its 11 MPs with only Alistair Carmichael narrowly retaining Orkney and Shetland with a 3.6% majority.
At the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections, the party again had 5 MSPs elected but was pushed into 5th place by the Scottish Greens. While it gained the 2 constituency seats of Edinburgh Western and North East Fife from the SNP, its vote share fell slightly overall.
At the 2017 general election, the party held its only constituency of Orkney and Shetland with an increased majority, as well as gaining back three seats lost to the SNP in 2015 – Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, East Dunbartonshire and Edinburgh West. The Scottish Liberal Democrats lost the North East Fife constituency to Stephen Gethins of the SNP by two votes. In the 2019 election, UK leader Jo Swinson lost her East Dunbartonshire seat to the SNP and was forced to stand down as leader, but the Liberal Democrats took North East Fife to retain four seats in Scotland.

Policy platform

The Scottish Party decides its policy on state matters independently from the federal party. State matters include not only currently devolved issues but also those reserved matters which the party considers should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, including broadcasting, energy, drugs and abortion. The party also believes that the Scottish Parliament should exercise greater responsibility on fiscal matters. A party commission chaired by former Liberal Party leader and Scottish Parliament Presiding Officer Sir David Steel set out the party's proposals on the constitutional issue.
According to its constitution, the party believes in a "fair, free and open society... in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity". It has traditionally argued for both positive and negative liberties, tolerance of social diversity, decentralisation of political authority, including proportional representation for public elections, internationalism and greater involvement in the European Union. In the 2007 elections it campaigned for reforms to public services and local taxation, and for more powers for the Scottish Parliament within a federal Britain.
In December 2007, the party supported the creation of a new Commission on Scottish Devolution, along similar lines to the earlier Scottish Constitutional Convention, to discuss further powers for the Scottish Parliament.

Elected representatives (current)

Scottish Parliament

Member of the Scottish ParliamentConstituency or RegionFirst electedSpokespersons
Willie RennieNorth East Fife2011Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats
Liam McArthurOrkney2007Justice and Energy
Beatrice WishartShetland2019Education
Alex Cole-HamiltonEdinburgh Western2016Health and housing
Mike RumblesNorth East Scotland2016Rural Affairs

House of Commons of the United Kingdom

Member of ParliamentConstituencyFirst electedNotes
Alistair CarmichaelOrkney and Shetland2001Only Lib Dem MP returned in the 2015 general election in Scotland.
Christine JardineEdinburgh West2017
Jamie StoneCaithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross2017Member of the Scottish Parliament for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross between 1999 and 2011.
Wendy ChamberlainNorth East Fife2019
Only gain made by the Liberal Democrats in Scotland at the 2019 general election. Was previously the most marginal seat in the entire United Kingdom in 2017.

Electoral performance

Scottish Parliament Elections

UK general elections

This chart shows the electoral results of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, from the first election the party contested in 1992. Total number of seats, and vote percentage, is for Scotland only. For results prior to 1992, see Scottish Liberal Party.
ElectionVote %SeatsOutcome of election
199213.1Conservative Overall Majority
199713.0Labour Overall Majority
200116.3Labour Overall Majority
200522.6Labour Overall Majority
201018.9Conservative & Liberal Democrat Coalition
20157.5Conservative Overall Majority
20176.8Hung Parliament
20199.0Conservative Majority

European Parliament

Liberal Democrat Scottish peers in the House of Lords