Why did the Liberal Democrats collapse?

[Gary J]

The Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats, between the 1960s and the formation of the Coalition in 2010, prospered (to the extent they did) by refusing to make a choice between Labour and Conservative. Aligning one way or the other was always going to alienate about half their former support.

During the 1950s many of the few Liberal MPs were only elected because they benefited from local electoral pacts with the Conservatives (in the Bolton and Huddersfield areas of northern England) or in default of a candidate from one of the major parties in remote and atypical areas of rural Wales. When Jo Grimond (MP for Orkney and Shetland) became the party leader in 1956, one reason was that he was the only one of the MPs who could expect to be re-elected against both Labour and Conservative opposition.

Being the minor party in a coalition government was also disastrous. As has happened in the Republic of Ireland with a series of junior coalition partners in recent decades, the larger party gets the benefit and the smaller party is blamed for what the government does.

The Liberal Democrats were perceived as being prepared to agree with anything, for the sake of office. This destroyed, perhaps permanently, the anti-system element of the Lib Dem appeal and the image of being different from other politicians.

The party has held up, in a limited number of relatively strong areas but remains weak in much of the country. It is in a stronger electoral position, even now, than the Liberal Party in the 1950s.