Scottish Liberal Democrats

Scottish Liberal Democrats Pàrtaidh Libearal Deamocratach na h-Alba (Scottish Gaelic) Scots Leeberal Democrats (Scots)
Leader	Alex Cole-Hamilton
Deputy Leader	Wendy Chamberlain
President	Willie Wilson
Founded	8 March 1988 (1988-03-08)
Headquarters	4 Clifton Terrace Edinburgh EH12 5DR
Youth wing	Scottish Young Liberals
Membership (December 2020)	4,185
Ideology	Liberalism Social liberalism Federalism British unionism Pro-Europeanism
Political position	Centre to centre-left
National affiliation	Liberal Democrats
European affiliation	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
International affiliation	Liberal International
Colours	Yellow
Slogan	"For a fair deal for Scotland"
House of Commons (Scottish seats)	6 / 57
Scottish Parliament	4 / 129
Local government in Scotland	87 / 1,227
Website
www.scotlibdems.org.uk
Politics of Scotland Political parties Elections

The Scottish Liberal Democrats (Scottish Gaelic: Pàrtaidh Libearal Deamocratach na h-Alba; Scots: Scots Leeberal Democrats) is a liberal, federalist political party in Scotland, part of UK Liberal Democrats. The party holds 4 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 6 of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats is 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.

History

See also: Devolution in the United Kingdom and History of Scottish devolution

Formation and early years

The Scottish Liberal Democrat party was formed by the merger of the Scottish Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Scotland, as part of the merger of the Liberal Party and SDP 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 Scottish Labour, the Scottish Greens, trades unions and churches. It 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 Scottish Lib Dems won 17 seats. Following this, it formed a coalition government with Scottish Labour 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 Lib Dems' 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 (although whether that amounted to the claimed achievement of having abolished tuition fees was hotly contested), free personal care for the elderly and (during the second coalition government) changing the system of elections for Scottish local authorities to the single transferable vote, a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy.

2007–2011: Opposition

In the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, 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 (SNP) and the Scottish Greens, 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 party leader, citing the "stresses and strains" of the job. 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.

2011–2021: Electoral decline

At the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, the party lost all its mainland constituencies, retaining only the two constituencies of Orkney and Shetland; it also secured three List MSPs. This was, at the time, by far the party's worst electoral performance since the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament in 1999. The disastrous results were blamed on a backlash to the Lib Dems' coalition with the Conservative Party. Scott resigned as party leader on 7 May, and the resulting leadership election was won by Willie Rennie ten days later.

At the 2014 European Parliament election, the party lost its only MEP, leaving it with no representation for the first time since 1994. The party lost 10 of its 11 MPs at the 2015 general election with only Alistair Carmichael narrowly retaining his seat, holding Orkney and Shetland with a 3.6% majority.

At the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, the party again had five MSPs elected but was pushed into 5th place by the Scottish Greens. While it regained the two 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 retained Orkney and Shetland with an increased majority, as well as regaining three seats lost to the SNP in 2015 – Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, East Dunbartonshire and Edinburgh West. The Scottish Liberal Democrats lost out on the North East Fife constituency to Stephen Gethins of the SNP by just two votes, making it the most marginal result in the UK at the general election that year.

In the 2019 European Parliament election, they re-gained a Member of European Parliament, Sheila Ritchie, for the Scotland Region until the United Kingdom left the European Union in early 2020.

Two years later, at the 2019 general election, UK Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson lost East Dunbartonshire to Amy Callaghan of the SNP by 150 votes, and was forced to stand down as leader; but the Liberal Democrats successfully regained North East Fife and retained four seats in Scotland. The Scottish Lib Dems replaced Scottish Labour as the third-largest party in Scotland in terms of seats at the 2019 general election, in a historic landslide defeat for the party nationwide.

At the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, only 4 MSPs were elected for the Lib Dems, holding onto their 4 constituency seats while losing their single regional seat in North East Scotland. The party's vote share also declined further, reaching a new low in both constituency and list vote share at a Scottish Parliamentary election, and 50 deposits were lost out of the 73 constituencies contested. The resulted in the party dropping below the five-seat threshold to be recognised as a parliamentary party in the Scottish Parliament, and as a result losing certain parliamentary rights such as a guaranteed question at First Minister's Questions. Following the election, Rennie resigned as leader, and was replaced by Alex Cole-Hamilton in August 2021 after he stood to run unopposed.

2022–present: Rebuilding

After winning 87 council seats in the 2022 Scottish local elections, an increase from 67 in 2017, party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton announced a target of 150 councillors by 2027.

At the 2024 United Kingdom general election, the party held the successors to their four seats which had their boundaries redrawn and gained an additional two by taking Mid Dunbartonshire and Ross, Skye and Lochaber from the SNP. Due to the reduction of House of Common seats in the 2023 Boundary Review, many news organisations would report the results as two holds and four gains.

Leadership

Leader

No.	Image	Name	Term start	Term end
1		Malcolm Bruce	3 March 1988	18 April 1992
2		Jim Wallace	18 April 1992	23 June 2005
3		Nicol Stephen	23 June 2005	2 July 2008
Acting		Michael Moore	2 July 2008	26 August 2008
4		Tavish Scott	26 August 2008	7 May 2011
5		Willie Rennie	17 May 2011	20 July 2021
Acting		Alistair Carmichael	20 July 2021	20 August 2021
6		Alex Cole-Hamilton	20 August 2021	Incumbent

Deputy Leaders

No.	Image	Name	Term start	Term end
1		Michael Moore	2 November 2002	20 September 2010
2		Jo Swinson	20 September 2010	23 September 2012
3		Alistair Carmichael	23 September 2012	3 December 2021
4		Wendy Chamberlain	3 December 2021	Incumbent

Current party leadership, office bearers and committee members

Current party officials include:

• Leader: Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP
• Deputy Leader: Wendy Chamberlain MP
• Convener: Jenni Lang
• Treasurer: Mike Gray
• President: Willie Wilson
• Vice-Convener, Policy: Neil Casey
• Vice-Convener, Conference: Paul McGarry
• Vice-Convener, Campaigns & Candidates: Charles Dundas

Structure

In keeping with its basis as a federation of organisations, the Scottish party also consists of a number of local parties (which mostly follow the boundaries of the Scottish Council Areas), 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 (based on the boundaries of the eight Scottish Parliament electoral regions).

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 Deputy Leader and the President of the party, as well as the party Treasurer and the three Vice-Conveners. All party members vote every two years in internal elections to elect people to all the below positions, except Leader & Depute Leader.

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:

• Association of Scottish Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigners (ASLDC)
• LGBT+ Liberal Democrats
• Scottish Green Liberal Democrats
• Scottish Women Liberal Democrats
• Scottish Young Liberals

Association of Scottish Liberal Democrat Councillors and Campaigners

The Association of Scottish Liberal Democrat Councillors (ASLDC) 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 (STV) 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 (CoSLA) where Peter Barrett is leader of the Lib Dem Group.

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 (along with Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives) 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.

In 2012, the Scottish Liberal Democrats joined the Better Together campaign with other Unionist political parties to campaign for a No vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, with Craig Harrow, then convener of the party, joining the Board of Directors.

They campaigned to for the UK and Scotland to remain a member of the European Union via the Stronger In preceding the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum

In 2021, the Scottish Liberal Democrats negotiated a budget agreement with the SNP Scottish government, helping pass the Scottish budget with the condition of additional funding for community mental health services, schools and renewables retraining for people in the oil and gas sector in North East Scotland.

In the Scottish Parliament election later that year, their manifesto pledges included training more mental health specialists, an NHS recovery plan after the COVID-19 pandemic, investing in low carbon heat networks, new national parks, a universal basic income, play-based education, opposing a second independence referendum and moving homes to zero-emission heating.

In the 2024 UK General Election, the party's manifesto was similar to the UK-wide party manifesto, and focussed on funding for the NHS and social care, stopping the dumping of sewage into Scottish rivers and tackling the cost-of-living crisis. The manifesto also included pledges on zero-emissions by 2045 at the latest, a one- year emergency home insulation programme, removing the benefit cap, electrifying the rail network, enhancing the Human Rights Act, and scrapping the Illegal Migration Act, among other policies.

Elected representatives

Scottish Parliament

See also: List of Liberal Democrat members of the Scottish Parliament and 6th Scottish Parliament

Member of the Scottish Parliament	Constituency or Region	First elected	Spokespersons
Alex Cole-Hamilton	Edinburgh Western	2016	Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and spokesperson for Health
Liam McArthur	Orkney	2007	Justice and the Climate Emergency
Willie Rennie	North East Fife	2011	Education, Economy and Communities
Beatrice Wishart	Shetland	2019	Rural Affairs and Connectivity

House of Commons of the United Kingdom

Member of Parliament	Constituency	First elected	Notes
Alistair Carmichael	Orkney and Shetland	2001	Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee
Wendy Chamberlain	North East Fife	2019	Deputy Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and UK Liberal Democrat Chief Whip
Christine Jardine	Edinburgh West	2017	UK Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Scotland and Women & Equalities.
Angus MacDonald	Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire	2024
Susan Murray	Mid Dunbartonshire	2024
Jamie Stone	Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross	2017	Chair of the Petitions Committee

Local Government

Scottish Liberal Democrats currently have 87 elected councillors across Scotland with representation in each of the following councils:

• Aberdeen City Council
• Aberdeenshire Council
• Argyll and Bute Council
• Dumfries and Galloway Council
• Dundee City Council
• East Dunbartonshire Council
• City of Edinburgh Council
• Fife Council
• The Highland Council
• Perth and Kinross Council
• Renfrewshire Council
• Scottish Borders Council
• South Lanarkshire Council
• West Lothian Council

Electoral performance

Scottish Parliament

Election	Leader	Constituency			Regional			Total seats	+/–	Pos.	Government
		Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats
1999	Jim Wallace	333,179	14.2	12 / 73	290,760	12.4	5 / 56	17 / 129		4th	Lab–LD
2003		294,347	15.4	13 / 73	225,774	11.8	4 / 56	17 / 129		4th	Lab–LD
2007	Nicol Stephen	326,232	16.2	11 / 73	230,651	11.3	5 / 56	16 / 129	1	4th	Opposition
2011	Tavish Scott	157,714	7.9	2 / 73	104,472	5.2	3 / 56	5 / 129	11	4th	Opposition
2016	Willie Rennie	178,238	7.8	4 / 73	119,284	5.2	1 / 56	5 / 129		5th	Opposition
2021		187,816	6.9	4 / 73	137,152	5.1	0 / 56	4 / 129	1	5th	Opposition

House of Commons

This chart shows the electoral results of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, from the first election the party contested in 1992. Total number of seats, number of votes and vote percentage, is for Scotland only. For results prior to 1992, see Scottish Liberal Party.

Election	Leader	Scotland			+/–	Position		Government
		Votes	%	Seats
1992	Malcolm Bruce	383,856	13.1	9 / 72		3rd	3rd	Opposition
1997	Jim Wallace	365,362	13.0	10 / 72	1	2nd	3rd	Opposition
2001		380,034	16.3	10 / 72		2nd	3rd	Opposition
2005		528,076	22.6	11 / 59	1	2nd	3rd	Opposition
2010	Tavish Scott	465,471	18.9	11 / 59		2nd	3rd	Cons–LD
2015	Willie Rennie	219,675	7.5	1 / 59	10	4th	4th	Opposition
2017		179,061	6.8	4 / 59	3	4th	4th	Opposition
2019		263,417	9.5	4 / 59		3rd	4th	Opposition
2024	Alex Cole-Hamilton	234,228	9.7	6 / 57	2	3rd	3rd	Opposition

Local elections

Election	Leader	1st Pref Votes.	%	Councillors	+/–	Pos.
1992	Jim Wallace	140,697	9.5%	94 / 1,158	10	4th
1995		166,141	9.79%	60 / 1,155	34	4th
1999		289,236	12.7%	156 / 1,222	35	4th
2003		272,057	14.5%	175 / 1,222	18	3rd
2007	Nicol Stephen	266,693	12.7%	166 / 1,222	9	3rd
2012	Willie Rennie	103,087	6.62%	71 / 1,223	95	4th
2017		128,821	6.82%	67 / 1,227	3	4th
2022	Alex Cole-Hamilton	159,815	8.6%	87 / 1,227	20	4th

European Parliament

Election	Scotland			+/–
	Votes	%	Seats
1994		7.2	0 / 8
1999	96,971	9.8	1 / 8
2004	154,178	13.1	1 / 7
2009	127,038	11.5	1 / 6
2014	95,319	7.1	0 / 6	1
2019	218,285	13.8	1 / 6	1

Appointments

House of Lords

Peer	Ennobled	Notes
Patrick Boyle, 10th Earl of Glasgow	1984 (Hereditary)	Current chief of Clan Boyle
Elizabeth Barker, Baroness Barker	1999
Malcolm Bruce, Baron Bruce of Bennachie	2015
Menzies Campbell, Baron Campbell of Pittenweem	2015
James Erskine, 14th Earl of Mar	2000	Retired from the Lords in 2017.
Archy Kirkwood, Baron Kirkwood of Kirkhope	2005	MP for Roxburgh and Berwickshire from 1983 to 2005
Jeremy Purvis, Baron Purvis of Tweed	2013	MSP for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (2003 to 2011)
David Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood	1997	Leader of the Liberal Party & Leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats (1976 to 1988)
Nicol Stephen, Baron Stephen	2011	Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats (2005 to 2008)
Alison Suttie, Baroness Suttie	2013	Deputy chief of staff to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (2010 to 2011)
John Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso	2016 (Hereditary)
Iain Vallance, Baron Vallance of Tummel	2004
Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness	2007	Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats (1992 to 2005)

Further reading

• Torrance, David (2022). A History of the Scottish Liberals and Liberal Democrats. Edinburgh University Press. p. 240. ISBN 9781399506397.

See also

• Scottish Liberals for Independence
• English Liberal Democrats
• Welsh Liberal Democrats
• Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats

External links

• Official website