8.3 Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats won the third largest number of seats at the 2010 general election, returning 57 MPs. The Conservative Party failed to win an overall majority, and the Liberal Democrats entered government for the first time as part of a coalition.

The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party with the Social Democratic Party, but can trace their origin back to the Whigs and the Rochdale Radicals who evolved into the Liberal Party. The term 'Liberal Party' was first used officially in 1868, though it had been in use colloquially for decades beforehand. The Liberal Party formed a government in 1868 and then alternated with the Conservative Party as the party of government throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The Liberal Democrats are heavily a party on Constitutional and Political Reforms, including changing the voting system for General Elections (UK Alternative Vote referendum, 2011), abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an 300 member elected Senate, introducing Fixed Five Year Parliaments, and introducing a National Register of Lobbyists. Some members have been described as obsessed with House of Lords Reform, including the party's leader, Nick Clegg.

8.4 Scottish and Welsh Nationalists

Members of the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru work together as a single parliamentary group following a formal pact signed in 1986. This group currently has 9 MPs.

The Scottish National Party has enjoyed parliamentary representation continuously since 1967 and had 6 MPs elected at the 2010 election. Following the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, the SNP emerged as the largest party with 47 MSPs and formed a minority government with Alex Salmond the First Minister. After the 2011 Scottish election, the SNP won enough seats to form a majority government.

Plaid Cymru has enjoyed parliamentary representation continuously since 1974 and had 3 MPs elected at the 2010 election. Following the 2007 Welsh Assembly elections, they joined Labour as the junior partner in a coalition government, but have fallen down to the third largest party in the Assembly after the 2011 Assembly elections, and become an opposition party.

8.5 Northern Ireland parties

The Democratic Unionist Party had 8 MPs elected at the 2010 election. Founded in 1971 by Ian Paisley, it has grown to become the larger of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland. Other Northern Ireland parties represented at Westminster include the Social Democratic and Labour Party (3 MPs), the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (1 MP) and Sinn Féin (5 MPs). Sinn Féin MPs refuse to take their seats and sit in a 'foreign' parliament.

8.6 Other Parliamentary parties

The Green Party of England and Wales gained its first MP, Caroline Lucas, in the 2010 General Election. It also has seats in the European Parliament, two seats on the London Assembly and around 120 local councillors.

The Respect party, a left-wing group that came out of the anti-war movement has one MP, George Galloway. It also has a small number of seats on local councils across the country.

There are usually a small number of Independent politicians in parliament with no party allegiance. In modern times, this has usually occurred when a sitting member leaves their party, and some such MPs have been re-elected as independents. The only current Independent MP is Lady Hermon, previously of the Ulster Unionist Party. However, since 1950 only two new members have been elected as independents without having ever stood for a major party:

-Martin Bell represented the Tatton constituency in Cheshire between 1997 and 2001. He was elected following a "sleaze" scandal involving the sitting Conservative MP, Neil Hamilton -- Bell, a BBC journalist, stood as an anticorruption independent candidate, and the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties withdrew their candidates from the election.

-Dr. Richard Taylor MP was elected for the Wyre Forest constituency in the 2001 on a platform opposing the closure of Kidderminster hospital. He later established Health Concern, the party under which he ran in 2005.

8.7 Non-Parliamentary political parties

Other UK political parties exist, but generally do not succeed in returning MPs to Parliament.

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has 13 seats in the European Parliament as well as seats in the House of Lords and a number of local councillors. On 22 April 2008 it welcomed the defection of Bob Spink MP for Castle Point, to date its only MP. However, Bob Spink later claimed to have never joined UKIP and does not sit as a UKIP MP.Two UKIP members were elected to the London Assembly in 2000, but they quit the party in February 2005 to join Veritas which they quit in September 2005 to sit as One London members. They were not re-elected in 2008.

The Scottish Green Party has 2 MSPs in the Scottish Parliament and a number of local councillors.

The Green Party (Ireland) has one MLAs in the Northern Ireland Assembly as well as local councillors.

The British National Party (BNP) has two seats in the European Parliament, a seat on the London Assembly as well as a number of councillors.

The English Democrats, which wants a parliament for England, has some local councillors and had its candidate elected mayor of Doncaster in 2009.

Other parties include: the Free England Party, the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party (England and Wales), the Socialist Workers Party, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Liberal Party, Mebyon Kernow (a Cornish nationalist party) in Cornwall, Veritas,the Communist Left Alliance (in Fife) and the Pirate Party UK.

Several local parties contest only within a specific area, a single county, borough or district. Examples include the Better Bedford Independent Party, which was one of the dominant parties in Bedford Borough Council and led by Bedford's former Mayor, Frank Branston. The most notable local party is Health Concern, which controlled a single seat in the UK Parliament from 2001 to 2010.

The Jury Team, launched in March 2009 and described as a "non-party party", is an umbrella organisation seeking to increase the number of independent members of both domestic and European members of Parliament in Great Britain.

The Official Monster Raving Loony Party was founded in 1983. The OMRLP are distinguished by having a deliberately bizarre manifesto, which contains things that seem to be impossible or too absurd to implement – usually to highlight what they see as real-life absurdities. In spite of (or perhaps because of) a reputation more satirical than serious, they have routinely been successful in local elections.