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Comment by cmrdporcupine | Hacker News Reader

Can somebody in the UK explain to me what happened to the Liberal Democrats? Did they implode after tying their hitch to the Cameron wagon in the last parliament?

Because it seems to me like a bulk of these supposed Blair-ite 'Labour' supporters who want Corbyn out so they don't have to be sullied with ugly old words like "socialism" and "wealth redistribution" more properly belong in a party closer to Canada's Liberal Party, and it is Corbyn who is inheriting the mantle of the more traditional Labour constituency? Why have the Liberal Democrats not done better out of the cataclysm in British party politics over the last few months?

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They did pretty badly in the last general election, probably as punishment for their time in the coalition. They didn't have many seats to start with but they have even less now.

However since the last general election we have seem what the Conservative Party can do when they are unrestrained and this has helped the LibDems make their argument that they were actually a significant player in the coalition government. There is likely to be a decent recovery in the next general election for them, particularly if they go in with a remain manifesto pledge. I doubt it would be enough for a majority government but possibly enough to force a coalition, which would not guarantee a remain deal and could result in them being punished in the subsequent general election.

They made an election promise around university tuition fees. When they were elected and become coalition leaders they reneged on that promise, and then continued to fuck over their core voters (bringing in damaging NHS budgets; really awful benefit reforms (and refusing to investigate increase in death by suicide linked to those reforms) etc.

They got in by focusing on marginal seats. They lost most of those in the last election. They used to get protest votes, but those went to UKIP or the green party, or even labour or conservative.

> Because it seems to me like a bulk of these supposed Blair-ite 'Labour' supporters

It's the labour MPs who want to get rid of corbyn. He's very popular with the party members.

Yes. They got burned badly for 'breaking their promises' after being elected into the coalition.

What nobody seems to have realised is that they didn't have anything close to a majority, so of course they weren't able to completely prevent the Tories from doing everything.

It's a shame IMO because what we clearly need right now is a Centralist party, especially with Labour going further and further to the Left under Corbyn.

> They got burned badly for 'breaking their promises' after being elected into the coalition.

Particularly university tuition fees, which was an important issue for much of the base.

(It's pretty sad what happened, and I think even now they get very little of the credit they deserve for their work in the previous parliament)

They took a big gamble on the AV change, but the conservatives screwed them by reneging on a promise to not campaign against it.

I wonder if they regret that now, as it would have provided a safety valve for Conservative -> UKIP defectors.

At least part of it is them getting screwed by the first past the post system. There was a swing towards labour in the last election in many seats that were split three ways, this took the seat rightward from Lib-Dem -> Conservative even though the voters were heading in the opposite direction.

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