Emphasising stronger protections for civil liberties, the party promotes social-liberal approaches[16] to issues like LGBT rights, drug liberalisation, education policy and criminal justice.

[25] Within the Labour Party, many centrists were uncomfortable with the growing influence of the hard left, who were calling for the UK to leave the European Economic Community and unilaterally disarm as a nuclear power.

[35] In the SDP, Jenkins, Rodgers, Williams, and the MP Charles Kennedy supported the idea; Owen and the MPs Rosie Barnes and John Cartwright opposed it.

[45] Ashdown saw the Liberal Democrats as a radical, reforming force, putting forward policies for introducing home rule for Scotland and Wales, proportional representation, transforming the House of Lords into an elected Senate, and advancing environmental protections.

[81][82] Kennedy however faced growing calls within the party to resign after admitting that he had been treated for alcoholism; in January 2006 he stepped down under pressure even though his admission wasn't damaging to the Lib Dems' public support.

[101] Of the 57 Liberal Democrat MPs, only two refused to support the Conservative Coalition agreement, with former party leader Charles Kennedy and Manchester Withington MP John Leech both rebelling against.

[103] As part of the coalition agreement, the Conservatives agreed to Lib Dem demands to introduce elected health boards, put forward a Fixed Term Parliament Bill, and ended income tax for those earning less than £10,000 a year.

[105] After joining the coalition poll ratings for the party fell,[106] particularly following the government's support for raising the cap on tuition fees for "higher education" with Liberal Democrat MPs voting 27 for, 21 against and eight abstaining.

[110][111] Shortly after the 2015 general election, Liberal Democrat leadership contender Norman Lamb conceded that Clegg's broken pledge on university tuition had proven costly.

Claiming the coalition agreement had been broken, Clegg stated that Liberal Democrat MPs would no longer support changes to the House of Commons boundaries for the 2015 general election.

[117] The Lib Dem Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne in 2011 announced plans for halving UK carbon emissions by 2025 as part of the "Green Deal" which was in the 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto.

In the 2017 general election, during which the party advocated continued membership of the European single market and a referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement,[136] the Liberal Democrats' vote share dropped 0.5% to 7.4%, its lowest percentage ever, but produced a net gain of four seats.

[140] In December 2018, the MP for Eastbourne, Stephen Lloyd, resigned the Liberal Democrat Whip, saying that his party's position on Brexit was inconsistent with his pledge to his constituency that he would "respect the result" of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.

[142] In the 2019 European Parliament election the party ran with an anti-Brexit message seeking the support of those who wish the UK to remain in the EU, using the slogan "Bollocks to Brexit" which attracted considerable media attention.

The remaining defectors were three of the 21 rebel Conservative MPs who had the whip withdrawn for voting against the government on a piece of legislation which would prevent a no-deal scenario on 31 October 2019: Antoinette Sandbach, Sam Gyimah, and Phillip Lee.

[156] Due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom in the late winter and spring which saw many politicians infected, the party's board initially pushed the leadership election back to May 2021.

[172] The Liberal Democrats entered the 2024 general election with its manifesto policies including reforming Carer's Allowance, free personal care in England, votes at 16 and proportional representation.

[204] The 1999 membership survey found that most favoured free markets and individual responsibility; they were nevertheless split on whether or not they regarded private enterprise as the best way to solve economic problems.

[95] Amid the 2008 recession, Clegg called for £20 billion cuts to state spending, to be funded by measures like reducing the number of people eligible for tax credits and scrapping road building schemes.

[223][224] In February 2019, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion stating that the UK must transfer the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius as they were not legally separated from the latter in 1965.

[225] Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael stated: "The ICJ has very clearly instructed the UK to return the island chain to Mauritian control.

[234] Following this promise, the Liberal Democrats claim that their membership has increased by 10,000 since the referendum; at one point, the growth in the party was the equivalent of one person joining per minute.

Amongst the Class of 2024 Lib Dem MPs, 26 of them are paid-up members of GLD (including Party Leader, Sir Ed Davey), thus forming a significant green caucus in the new parliament.

[238] Other policies included: The manifesto for the 2024 General Election contained significant references to the need to address Climate Change urgently and put the issue of Restoration of Nature much higher up the political agenda.

"[241] Commenting on the 1999 membership survey, Whiteley et al. noted that the majority of members took "a distinctly right of centre view" on many, although not all, moral and legal issues.

[288] A research briefing paper by the House of Commons Library published on 30 August 2022, stated that data submitted to the Electoral Commission suggested that the party membership at the end of 2021 stood at 73,544.

[298] Examining the survey evidence, Whiteley et al. argued that the strength of grassroots party activism in a particular area had a big impact on the vote share that the Liberal Democrats received there.

The Lib Dems and their Liberal and SDP predecessors have suffered especially,[304] particularly in the 1980s when their electoral support was greatest while the disparity between the votes and the number of MPs returned to parliament was significantly large.

[332] The group's leader for seven and a half years was the South West England MEP Graham Watson, who was also the first Liberal Democrat to be elected to the European Parliament when he won the old Somerset and North Devon constituency in 1994.

In October 2000, following a series of close votes, the parties formed a coalition, with the Liberal Democrat leader in the assembly, Michael German, becoming the Deputy First Minister.