Structure

The Liberal Democrats are a federal party of the parties of England, Scotland and Wales. The English and Scottish parties are further split into regions. The parliamentary parties of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly form semi-autonomous units within the party. The leaders in the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament are the leaders of the federal party and the Scottish Party; the leaders in the other two chambers, and the officers of all parliamentary parties, are elected from their own number. Co-ordination of all party activities across all federated groups is undertaken through the Federal Executive. Chaired by the party leader, its 30+ members includes representatives from each of the groups and democratically elected representatives.^[69]

The Lib Dems had around 73,000 members in 2004,^[1] and in the first quarter of 2008, the party received £1.1 million in donations and have total borrowings and unused credit facilities of £1.1 million (the "total debt" figure reported by the Electoral Commission includes, for example, unused overdraft facilities). This compares to Labour's £3.1 million in donations and £17.8 million of borrowing/credit facilities, and the Conservatives' £5.7 million in donations and £12.1 million of borrowing/credit facilities.^[70]

Specified Associated Organisations (SAOs) review and input policies, representing groups including: ethnic minorities (EMLD),^[71] women (WLD),^[72] the LGBT community (Delga),^[73] youth and students (Liberal Youth), engineers and scientists (ALDES),^[74] parliamentary candidates (PCA)^[75] and local councillor s (ALDC).^[76] Others can become Associated Organisations (AOs) as pressure groups in the party, such as the Green Liberal Democrats,^[77] Liberal Democrats Online^[78] and the Liberal Democrat Disability Association.^[79] The National Union of Liberal Clubs (NULC)represents Liberal Social Clubs which encourages recreational institutions where the promotion of the party can take place.

The party is a member of Liberal International and the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, and their 11 MEPs sit in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in the European Parliament.

Ideology and internal factions

The Lib Dems are a centre-left party that favours the welfare state and progressive taxation.^[11] They would like to reduce the basic rate of income tax from 20p (pence per pound of income) to 16p. To compensate the reduction, the party would close tax loopholes that benefit the rich, crack down on tax avoidance and cut public spending by £20 bn.

Liberal Democrats can be classified into two factions — social and market liberals — that are unrelated to membership of the party's predecessors. Several social liberals, including Paddy Ashdown, were former Liberal MPs, and some market liberals, such as Vincent Cable, were from the SDP.

Social liberals advocate the welfare state, higher taxation and public spending, government regulation to protect consumers, employees and the environment and support civil liberties and human rights. Social liberals include Paul Holmes, Norman Baker and Simon Hughes. Social liberal MPs from the party form the Beveridge Group in the British House of Commons.

The market liberal or libertarian wing shares with social liberals a belief in basic civil and political freedoms (negative freedoms). However, while social liberals argue that the state should provide social and economic rights to its citizens (positive freedoms), market liberals criticize the government's ability to increase freedom. This criticism often manifests itself as support for greater economic freedom, causing tension between the two wings. Several MPs from the market liberal wing contributed to the Orange Book (2004),^[86] a collection of essays intended to spark debate on a greater role for free-market liberalism in economic policy. Some party donors, journalists and party officials back this wing of the party.^[87] Leading market liberals in the party include Vince Cable, David Laws and Nick Clegg.^[86]