Talk:Liberal Party (UK, 1989)

Untitled
"The Liberal Party is strongly opposed to Britain's membership of the European Union and advocates withdrawal, something contradictory to the original position of the old Liberal Party."

Whilst the late 1950s-1980s Liberals supported the EU, this was not without dissenters. And going back to an earlier era, the Liberals were long the party of free trade, opposed to customs unions and common markets - indeed the party took itself out of office and into the real wilderness rather than support anything but free trade. Maybe someone with greater knowledge might want to expound on exactly what strain of liberalism this party follows? Timrollpickering 22:59, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, no. When the Liberals returned to power in 1859, Palmerston had retreated from the policy of unilateral free trade, and Cobden had come to believe in the use of commercial treaties in the service of international relations. Britain's reduction of tariffs in the 1840s had not been followed in other countries, to the chagrin and confusion of the Liberals; and, since that reduction had been achieved, the Liberals had other priorities. In 1860, the looming war with France was averted by an Anglo-French commercial treaty which, despite Gladstone and Cobden's spin that they had merely persuaded France of the benefits of reducing tariffs, was a clear case of reciprocity, with concessions on both sides. Britain and France used this commercial alliance to launch a network of treaties with, eventually, almost the whole of Western and central Europe, based on most-favoured-nation status and a Europe-wide maximum tariff (the "conventional" tariff). This network, effectively the first Common Market, lasted until 1892, and it was supported by the Liberals throughout that period. The Liberal ideal, of unilateral free trade, has long been tempered by both pragmatic and higher considerations. -- Gregg 01:34, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I was thinking more of the Samuel/Sinclair years when the party opposed the introduction of tariffs and the Ottowa Agreement, leaving the National Government and a large section of the party (the Liberal Nationals) over the issue, and subsequently when later several prominent Liberals, including the leader Sinclair, gave statements which seemed to see the issue of international free trade as about the only thing separating them from Churchill's Conservative Party. Whilst not the classic era of the party (but the period with which I'm most familiar), it does provide a precedent for the original party taking a stand of principal (and arguably political suicide) on the matter. Timrollpickering 02:34, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Date of Foundation.
Perhaps someone could provide more insight into the disputed date of foundation than I have? Matthew Platts 17:09, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The dispute arises from the this Liberal Party claiming to be the same party as the original Liberal Party. If that is true then the older date should be used. If this is not true then 1988 should be used. In my opinion it is the latter date. Very few people outside the Liberal Party claim it to be the earlier date.--Davebesag 23:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


 * From vague recollection, part of the claim stems from an interpretation of the nature of the 1859-1988 Liberal Party. As I understand it, it was technically a federation of affiliating local associations. In 1988 the associations were free to make their own choice as whether to affiliate to the new Lib Dems or not and three branches chose not to. The Liberal Party seems to claim continuity on the argument that all the other branches left the federation and the remaining three constituted a rump. Everyone outside seems to consider that the federation as a whole dissolved itself. Does anyone know the full technical details on this? Timrollpickering 15:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Michael Meadowcroft
I have just created an article on Michael Meadowcroft. Additions and edits are welcome. Ground Zero | t 16:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

2001 claim about Liverpool West Derby
Following discussion at Talk:Liverpool West Derby (UK Parliament constituency), I've modified the claim about them being "the only minor (that is, non-parliamentary) political party to be in second place in a Westminster election". --RFBailey 22:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Is this party really libertarian?
I've removed the libertarianism tag on the front page since it's inaccurate. This party are merely a social liberal party and not libertarian in the strict sense. No libertarian for example would endorse an NHS (or other socialised medicine) or state run education, progressive taxation, or a large welfare state. Libertarians generally believe in the non-initiation of force against one's person and property and as such come to a rejection of taxation, state run education/healthcare and the welfare state. Libertarians also believe in limited government and it seems to be that a Liberty Party government would be quite large in size and scope. Lapafrax 15:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

POV tag
on 21st April an anonymous editor added a Point of View tag just after the intro section of the article, between that and the table of contents, citing Wikipedia's neutrality rules. It isn't clear what part of the article the tag refers to; I've looked at the text above and below, and am unable to see anything that looks POV. The tags says to see the discussion on the talk page, but there doesn't seem to be any. I assume that the intention is that an editor putting up one of those tags should also give his or her reasons on the talk page so that they can be discussed. This hasn't been done. For all these reasons I'm going to delete the POV tag now. However, if you are that anonymous editor, please feel free to restore the tag - but in that case please post your reasons here!Twilde (talk) 23:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Anonymous editor here. Sorry about the lack of clarity. It was intended to apply to the policies section. Re-reading indicated to me that it would have been more accurate to describe the article as inaccurate. It incorrectly suggests that Liberal Democrat policy is against reform. It could legitimately say that many Liberals believe that the Liberal Democrat plans for EU reform are insufficient but suggesting that they are non-existent is incorrect and conflicts with the Liberal Democrats article. I have removed the start of the first sentence in that section, thus removing the incorrect bit while keeping the rest.
 * The other reference to Lib Dem policy (Land Value Taxation) is, I believe, incorrect as well. The "Reducing the Burden" policy paper was passed in Sept 2007 (I think) and included a reference to "retaining a long term commitment to a system of land value taxation" and a few equivalent statements. I am therefore suggesting that that section be changed. I would do it myself but I feel someone ought to do a little bit more research that I have done already. I don't have time to do that now but I thought I'd flag it up for someone else.
 * Apologies again for the lack of clarity. --84.13.67.132 (talk) 17:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello Anonymous. Fair enough - I can see your point in both cases. I've emulated your edit re EU policy by deleting the first few words of the sentence on LVT, getting rid of the words "Unlike the LibDems". I don't have time to do the research either, and this seems like the simplest solutiion. After all, this is an article about the Liberals rather than about the LibDems anyway! But if anyone can do a better job on this para, do go ahead! Twilde (talk) 00:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Electoral performance
I've added a table of elected councillors over time. This information is **VERY** **HARD** to track down, so putting it here means that it actually can be found. PLEASE TELL THE EDITBOT NOT TO DELETE IT! 77.102.219.172 (talk) 14:42, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I've put the table of elected councillors back in. DO NOT REMOVE THIS. As I've said here, this information is **VERY** **HARD** to track down, this page has become the primary collated source. Jgharston (talk) 14:26, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

The table did not show Unitary authorities. Peterborough City Council had one Ward which returned Libs until 2021 when the last Lib Cllr retired. It is not clear where the data for cllrs is derived. Adding national local elections links to the table indicates that Libs are being returned in small numbers, even where the columns are blank. The table does not show + or - columns. Fenlandier (talk) 12:08, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Membership numbers?
How many members have this lot actually got? They seem a bit shy about saying. Is it actually more than a 100? LOL (86.151.133.252 (talk) 22:41, 6 October 2014 (UTC))

External links modified
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Steve Radford
I'm sure the leader ( Steve Radford) used to have a Wikipedia page.The link to him just redirects back to the liberal party 1989 page. Does anyone know anything about this? I would make a page for him if necessary as I can't find a page, but I thought he used to have one. Greenleader (talk) 20:21, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've looked into this, and his article was deleted earlier this year after a discussion at Articles for deletion/Steve Radford, and replaced with a redirect here. If you want to restore it, you should go to WP:Deletion review. Robofish (talk) 22:14, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Liberal Party (UK, 1989). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Georgism?
Georgism is listed as part of the party's ideology, yet no source for that claim is cited. Anyone have any evidence which supports it? 92.18.19.205 (talk) 14:52, 11 August 2022 (UTC)