Liberal Party (UK, 1989)

Liberal Party
"Liberal Party Sun" logo
Leader	Rob Wheway
Chairman	Fran Oborski
Founded	1859 (1859) (Historical), 1989 (1989) (Present day)
Ideology	Liberalism, Social liberalism, Euroscepticism
Political position	Centre to Centre Left
European affiliation	None
European Parliament group	None
International affiliation	None
Colours	Orange and Black
Local government
Website
http://www.liberal.org.uk/
Politics of the United Kingdom Political parties Elections

The Liberal Party is a United Kingdom political party. It was formed in 1989 by a group of individuals within the original Liberal Party who felt that the merger of the party with the Social Democratic Party, to form the Liberal Democrats, had ended the spirit of the Liberal Party, claiming that the new Liberal Democrat party was dominated by the Social Democrats.

Current

The Liberal Party currently has 25 councillors. It put up a full slate of candidates in the North West England region for the 2004 European Parliament elections, and came seventh, with 4.6% of the vote (0.6% of the total British popular vote). Membership is around 200 nationally and attendance at assembly is around a dozen members.

At the 2001 UK general election, the party came second behind Labour in Liverpool West Derby, pushing the Liberal Democrats into third place. However, they were unable to repeat this at the 2005 general election, finishing third behind the Liberal Democrats but still beating the Conservatives; they repeated this performance at the 2010 general election.

The party president is Steve Radford and the party chairman is Fran Oborski. The party anthem is The Land, also popular amongst Liberal Democrats.

The party states that it exists "to build a Liberal Society in which every citizen shall possess liberty, property and security and none shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. Its chief care is for the rights and opportunities of the individual, and in all spheres it sets freedom first."

Policies

The Liberal Party's highest policy-making body is its annual conference, the Liberal Assembly, at which all party members are entitled to vote. Liberal policies include:

• European Union – Whilst the Liberal Party’s constitution commits it to “build a United Europe” and the party’s earlier policies were very Europhile, the Liberal Party took a very Eurosceptic line under Steve Radford's leadership. The new Wheway/Oborski leadership is likely to take a less strident Eurosceptic line. The Liberal Party stated policy is that the EU is in need of fundamental reform, and that to force such reforms the UK may have to threaten to withdraw from the EU; the Liberal Party is opposed to the adoption of the Euro; the party was initially bitterly opposed to referendums, describing them as undemocratic and illiberal, however the party now calls for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
• Sentencing – Imprisonment should only be considered for crimes against the person, or which put persons at risk of physical, psychological or emotional injury; rejection of demands for harsher penalties; an end to the use of prison custody for all young people under 18.
• Drugs – Repeal of legislation regarding the prohibition of drugs and its replacement with an effective strategy of legalisation, regulation and control; taxation of drugs and redirection of criminal justice expenditure to education and treatment services.
• Government – Allowing people to vote at age 16; the introduction of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote; a predominantly elected Senate to replace the House of Lords.
• Civil liberties – Establishment of a Bill of rights and a written Constitution; opposition to introducing Identity cards.
• Foreign policy – Increasing overseas aid to 0.7% of GNP; removing country's veto power at the United Nations; establish a permanent UN peacekeeping force; the abandonment of the UK's nuclear weapons.
• Taxation – Income tax to be simplified with earnings under £10,000 to be tax free as a means of encouraging people into work and reducing the need for tax credits; the party proposes a top rate of income tax of 50% on taxable earnings over £100,000; the party advocates a system of 'Universal Inheritance' whereby individuals are paid a £10,000 'inheritance' at the age of 25, to be repaid in the form of a reformed inheritance tax with a starting rate of 10%; the Liberal Party remains committed to Land Value Taxation.

History

The contemporary Liberal Party is claimed by some to be one of Britain's oldest political parties, the Liberal Party founded in 1859. This claim is disputed, and the dispute centres around events which took place in 1988–89. In that year the old Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party voted to merge to create a new party, which was initially called the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD) but later became known just as the Liberal Democrats.

Initially, at the time of the merger, many members believed that the new party would be broadly a continuation of the Liberals, but as the Liberal Democrats settled down and developed clear policies, some Liberals such as the former Member of Parliament Michael Meadowcroft decided that the Liberal Democrats were not the party for them and so in 1989 they set out to re-establish the Liberal Party.

It was legally a new organisation (the headquarters, records, assets and debts of the old party were inherited by the Liberal Democrats), though its constitution asserts it to be the same party as that which had previously existed. (Liberal Democrats dispute this claim citing the 88% of Liberal Party members who voted, were in favour of merger.) Meadowcroft, who had been elected President of the Liberal Party just before the merger took place, now took up that post in the re-founded party. The (new) Liberal Party was refused membership of the Liberal International, although some of the party’s members take part in LI activities though the British Group of the Liberal International (BGLI).

The re-founded party included a number of councillors and even entire council groups from the pre-1988 party, some of whom continue to be Liberal councillors today. Since then the number of Liberal councillors has fluctuated slightly but has neither risen nor fallen dramatically.

In 2002, the party's first president, Michael Meadowcroft, stepped down from the post and was replaced by Councillor Steve Radford. In 2007 Meadowcroft joined the Liberal Democrats. In 2009 Councillor Rob Wheway took over as President of the party.

During the 2009 European Parliament election the Liberal Party's Steve Radford participated in the NO2EU electoral alliance.

See also

• Social Democratic Party (UK, 1990), the rump successor to the SDP which did not merge into the Liberal Democrats.
• Liberalism
• Contributions to liberal theory
• Liberalism worldwide
• List of liberal parties
• Liberal democracy
• Liberalism in the United Kingdom
• Liberal Assembly

External links

• The Liberal Party (official website)
• The Liverpool Liberal Party
• Peterborough Liberals
• The Liberal Party Southampton
• The Wyre Forest Liberals
• Thirsk and Malton Liberals
• Liberal Forum unofficial web forum for party supporters.
• Liberal Agenda promotes liberalism in the U.K and membership involvement in the U.K.Liberal Party.
• Catalogue of the Liberal Party 1989 papers at LSE Archives