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
cabinet secretary for justice and home affairs. 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 of 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;
Willie Rennie won the resulting
election to replace Scott ten days later. At the
2014 European Parliament election, the party lost its only MEP, leaving it with no representation in Europe 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 in the most marginal result in the UK at the general election that year. In the
2019 European Parliament election, the Liberal Democrats re-gained a Member of European Parliament:
Sheila Ritchie represented the Scotland Region until the United Kingdom left the European Union in early 2020. In 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 Labour nationwide. In the
2021 Scottish Parliament election electors returned only 4 Lib Dem MSPs: the party held on to 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 candidates lost deposits in the 73 constituencies contested. This resulted in the party dropping below the five-seat threshold required for recognition as a parliamentary party in the Scottish Parliament, and consequently 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 general election, the party won the most number of seats since
2010. 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 ==