Liberal Democrat membership at record level

As I write, the United Kingdom is preparing for a general election in early June.  It is not looking good for UKIP, which is contesting only 377 out of 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom.  It is also not looking good for the Labour Party, which is currently receiving very poor press coverage.

Things do appear to be looking up for the Liberal Democrats, however.  Among other things they have recently announced that their membership has for the first time ever surpassed 100,000.

What I find curious about this is that this was supposed to be their original membership figure.

The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 through the merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party.  The SDP had in excess of 50,000 members at the time of the merger.  The Liberal Party membership is not known as the party never had a central membership register.   It had the appearance of a larger party, however.  It had more MPs than the SDP, and a lot more councillors.

There was a widespread belief among supporters of the merger that the new party would start with a membership in excess of 100,000.  For example I remember that the leading figure in the pro-merger movement in the SDP predicted that ninety percent of SDP members would join the new party.

So far as I am aware, the Liberal Democrats have for most of their existence numbered around 70,000, and their membership has been as low as around 40,000.  In other words, this party was born in hubris.  The people who predicted a starting membership of 100,000 were making a truly arrogant assumption.

In a sense I can see why they did this.  Confidence can be an impressive quality.

What actually happened was that the newly formed Social and Liberal Democrats – to give them their full name – found itself struggling to achieve the electoral support they had expected, and it was not until October 1990 that they achieved their first gain in a parliamentary by-election.

During its first year of existence, the party spent profligately, and ended up in severe financial difficulties.  I wonder that anyone saw fit to vote for them at this time.  After all, a party which cannot be trusted with its own finances can hardly be trusted with national government.

I find efficiency to be far more attractive than arrogance, and that is one of many reasons why I do not support the Liberal Democrats.

Related previous posts include:
Theresa May's election gamble
The aftermath of the general election