Scottish Liberal Democrats

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.[12]

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.[13]

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[14] 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.

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.[15]

On 2 July 2008, Nicol Stephen resigned as party leader, citing the "stresses and strains" of the job.[16] 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.[17]

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.[18] Scott resigned as party leader on 7 May,[19] and the resulting leadership election was won by Willie Rennie ten days later.[20]

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.[21]

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.[22]

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.[23][24]

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.[25] 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.[26]

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.[27]

• Leader: Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP
• Deputy Leader: Wendy Chamberlain MP
• Convener: Sheila Ritchie
• Treasurer: Steve Arrundale
• President: Willie Wilson
• Vice-Convener, Policy: Vacant
• Vice-Convener, Conference: Paul McGarry
• Vice-Convener, Campaigns & Candidates: Jenny Marr

The Association of Scottish Liberal Democrat Councillors (ASLDC)[28] 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.

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

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	9.0	4 / 59		3rd	4th	Opposition