Sir John Vincent Cable is a British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 to 2019. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015.
Nigel Paul Farage is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2021. Farage is currently the Honorary President of Reform UK and a presenter for GB News. He served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union in 2020.
Sir Norman Peter Lamb is a British politician and solicitor. He was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) for North Norfolk from 2001 to 2019, and was the chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee from 2017 to 2019.
Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg is a British media executive and former politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015 and as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Hallam from 2005 to 2017. An "Orange Book" liberal, he has been associated with both socially liberal and economically liberal policies. In 2018, Clegg became vice‑president of global affairs and communications at Facebook, Inc., before being promoted in 2022 to president for global affairs.
Timothy James Farron is a British politician who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2015 to 2017. He was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Westmorland and Lonsdale in 2005 and is the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Before entering politics, he worked in higher education.
Annunziata Mary Rees-Mogg is a freelance journalist whose focus is finance, economics, and European politics and was a British Brexit Party then Conservative politician during 2019 and into early 2020.
The Liberal Democrats are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1988. They have been the third-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast since the 1992 general election, with the exception of the 2015 general election. 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 nearly 3,000 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 for its policies and in the election of a new leader. 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.
Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results.
The 2014 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2014 European Parliament election, held on Thursday 22 May 2014, coinciding with the 2014 local elections in England and Northern Ireland. In total, 73 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom using proportional representation. England, Scotland and Wales use a closed-list party list system of PR, while Northern Ireland used the single transferable vote (STV).
Membership and supporter status within political parties in the United Kingdom typically contain restrictions including:
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 acting 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 of that year that she would not stand for re-election at the next general election.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019 with 47,074,800 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members of the House of Commons. The Conservative Party won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6% of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 general election.
The 2019 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2019 European Parliament election, held on Thursday 23 May 2019 and the results were announced on Sunday 26 and Monday 27 May 2019, after all the other EU countries had voted. This was the United Kingdom's final participation in a European Parliament election before leaving the European Union on 31 January 2020, and was also the last election to be held under the provisions of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 before its repeal under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
On 1 December 2016, a by-election was held in the UK parliamentary constituency of Richmond Park. It was triggered by the resignation of the Conservative Member of Parliament Zac Goldsmith on 25 October 2016 over the Government's proposal for a third runway at the nearby Heathrow Airport. It was won by Sarah Olney of the Liberal Democrats, after a campaign focused on opposition to Brexit.
Sarah Jane Olney is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond Park in Greater London since 2019, previously holding the seat 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.
A by-election for the House of Commons constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham in Lincolnshire, England, was held on 8 December 2016. It was triggered by the resignation of the Conservative member of parliament (MP) Stephen Phillips, who left Parliament on 4 November 2016 due to policy differences with the Conservative government led by the prime minister, Theresa May, over Brexit – the British withdrawal from the European Union (EU). The Conservatives nominated Caroline Johnson, a paediatrician, to replace Phillips; she won the by-election with more than 50 per cent of the vote, a sizable majority. The Conservatives' vote share fell slightly compared to the result at the previous general election in 2015.
Reform UK is a political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Catherine Blaiklock with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit. It was a significant political force at the 2019 European Parliament election, but failed to win any seats at the 2019 general election. After the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) on 31 January 2020, it was renamed to Reform UK, and it became primarily an anti-lockdown party during the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, in December 2022, it began campaigning on broader right-wing populist themes during the British cost-of-living crisis.
"Bollocks to Brexit" is a meme and grassroots campaign slogan used by people opposing Brexit, following the result of a 2016 referendum.
Various newspapers, organisations and individuals endorsed parties or individual candidates for the 2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom.
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.
