Twelve Liberal Democrat members of Parliament (MPs) were elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom at the 2017 general election. Stephen Lloyd resigned the whip in December 2018 to vote for May's withdrawal agreement, [1] while former Labour and Change UK MP Chuka Umunna joined the party in June 2019 after quitting Change UK. [2] Jane Dodds was elected on 1 August 2019 in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election. Former Conservative and Change UK MP Sarah Wollaston joined the party on 14 August 2019. [3] Phillip Lee crossed the floor from the Conservative Party on 3 September 2019 due to disagreements over the Conservatives' handling of Brexit, [4] followed by former Labour and Change UK independent Luciana Berger two days later. [5] Two days after Berger's defection Angela Smith, another former Labour and Change UK independent, also joined the Lib Dems. [6] On 14 September, at the start of the Liberal Democrats conference in Bournemouth, Sam Gyimah defected to the party from the Conservatives. [7] On 7 October, former Change UK leader (and, before that, Conservative MP) Heidi Allen joined the Liberal Democrats, becoming their 19th MP. [8] Stephen Lloyd was elected as a Liberal Democrat but resigned the Liberal Democrat whip in order to support the proposed European Union withdrawal agreement; he sat as an independent from 6 December 2018, though remained a party member, until he asked to re-take the whip on 29 October 2019. [9] [10] [11] On 31 October 2019 expelled Conservative MP Antoinette Sandbach became the 21st Liberal Democrat MP. [12]
Robert Graham Marshall-Andrews KC is a British barrister, author, and retired politician, who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Medway from 1997 to 2010. He defected from his former party at the 2017 general election and endorsed the Liberal Democrats.
The Welsh Liberal Democrats are a branch of the United Kingdom Liberal Democrats that operates in Wales. The party is led by Jane Dodds, who served as MP for Brecon and Radnorshire from August to December 2019, and MS for Mid and West Wales since May 2021. The party currently has 1 elected member in the Senedd and no Welsh seats in the UK House of Commons, but does have several members of the House of Lords. The party had 69 local councilors serving in principal authorities as of the 2022 local authority elections, up 10 from 2017.
Chuka Harrison Umunna is a British businessman and former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham from 2010 until 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, he was part of the Shadow Cabinet from 2011 to 2015. He left Labour in February 2019, when he resigned to form The Independent Group, later Change UK, along with six other MPs. Later in 2019, he left Change UK and, after a short time as an independent MP, joined the Liberal Democrats. In the 2019 general election, he was unsuccessful in being re-elected as an MP and did not return to the House of Commons.
The Liberal Democrats are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1988. Since the 1992 general election, with the exception of the 2015 general election, they have been the third-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast. They have 15 members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 84 members of the House of Lords, four Members of the Scottish Parliament and one member in the Welsh Senedd. The party has over 2,500 local council seats. The party holds a twice-per-year Liberal Democrat Conference, at which party policy is formulated. In contrast to its main opponents' conference rules, the Lib Dems grant all members attending its Conference the right to speak in debates and vote on party policy, under a one member, one vote system. The party also allows its members to vote online. The party served as the junior party in a coalition government with the Conservative Party between 2010 and 2015; with Scottish Labour in the Scottish Executive from 1999 to 2007, and with Welsh Labour in the Welsh Government from 2000 to 2003 and from 2016 to 2021.
Stephen Anthony Christopher Lloyd is a British Liberal Democrat politician who was twice Member of Parliament (MP) for the seat of Eastbourne.
Antoinette Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach, known as Antoinette Sandbach, is a former British politician who was elected as Member of Parliament for Eddisbury in Cheshire at the 2015 general election.
Caroline Julie Porte Ansell is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Eastbourne since the 2019 general election. She was first elected as Eastbourne's MP at the 2015 general election, but was defeated at the 2017 election.
Heidi Suzanne Allen is a British businesswoman and former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Cambridgeshire from 2015 to 2019. Initially elected as a Conservative, she resigned from the party in February 2019, joining and later serving as leader of Change UK. She resigned from Change UK in June of the same year, and joined the Liberal Democrats in October 2019. She announced on 29 October that she would not stand for re-election at the next general election.
Sarah Jane Olney is a British Liberal Democrat politician and former accountant who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond Park since 2019, and previously from 2016 to 2017. Olney has served as the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Treasury since July 2022, and for Business and Industrial Strategy since January 2020.
The Independent Group for Change, also known as Change UK, was a British centrist, pro-European Union political party, founded in February 2019 and dissolved ten months later, after all its MPs lost their seats at the 2019 general election. Its principal aim was a second withdrawal referendum on European Union membership, in which it would campaign to remain in the EU. On economic issues it expressed a commitment to the social market economy.
The 2019 Liberal Democrats leadership election was held following the announcement of the resignation of Vince Cable as leader on 24 May 2019, after just under two years as leader of the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom. The two candidates to succeed Cable were Ed Davey and Jo Swinson.
A by-election was held in the UK Parliament constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire on 1 August 2019 after Chris Davies, who had held the seat for the Conservatives since the 2015 general election, was unseated by a recall petition. The by-election was won by Jane Dodds of the Liberal Democrats.
The 2020 Liberal Democrats leadership election was held in August 2020, after Jo Swinson, the previous leader of the Liberal Democrats, lost her seat in the 2019 general election. It was initially set to be held in July 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was delayed by six weeks, having been at first postponed until May 2021.
A by-election for the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of North Shropshire was held on 16 December 2021. It was triggered by the resignation of the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Owen Paterson on 5 November 2021. The by-election was won by Helen Morgan, with a 34% swing from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats.
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