The Liberal Democrats, often shortened to Lib Dems, are a centrist to centre-left social liberal democrats political party in the United Kingdom. The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, making them somewhere between neoclassical liberal, and social liberal.
From 2010 - 2015 the Lib Dems were in the Conservative led coalition, with Nick Clegg as the Deputy Prime Minister. However, the party lost all but eight its seats in the 2015 general election and the conservatives won a majority. The party have never fully recovered from their drubbing in 2015. The party won 12 seats in 2017 (+4) and 11 in 2019 (-1). The party currently has 12 MPs in the House of Conmmons, after having won a by-election in 2021 for the seat of Chesham and Amersham.
