The Liberal Democratic party was a merger of the Liberals and SDP, whose view of the world was very similar.
Great progress was made between the early eighties and 2010 when the party faced a very difficult decision. The outcome of that election was that no party had a majority and although most LibDems were closer to the Labour party than the Conservatives, the numbers did not add up for a Labour/Lib Dem coaltion. It was decided (but it was by no means a unanimous decision) that we should work with the Tories in the interests of the country.
The alternative would have been a minority Tory government and another election soon after. The Tories were the only party with the money to fight another election and they would probably have won.
I was one of the LIbDems who reluctantly supported the coalition and in spite of the achievements that were made where good LibDem policies were enacted and bad Tory policies were blocked, I now think that it was probably the wrong thing to do.
The coalition served the interests of the country but not the party.
I live in an area where the Labour party is virtually non-existant and so the LibDems did attract votes from left-leaning voters. They were not so much Liberals as anti-conservative and they were no longer prepared to vote for a party that had "got into bed with the Tories"
We realised in 2015 that because of this we were on course to lose a third of our votes and about half of our seats. However Nichola Sturgeon made a big impression at the televised debates and SNP support rose. When she uttered the triumphalist "we will work with the Labour party to lovk the Tories out of Downing Street for ever" there was an immediate reaction in England and we lost two-thirds of our votes from 2010 and almost all of our seats. In spite of getting twice as many votes as the SNP we only have eight MPs and they have all the seats in Scotland bar three.
In spite of this party membership has soared and over a thousand new members have joined in the last few days.
The last thing we need is a new centre party. The Labour party, Tories and Greens are all having to find new leaders. We have an excellent leader in Tim Farron, who in spite of the lack of coverage in the press and TV, certainly mounted a strong campaign to remain in the EU and did not shy away from appearing on the same platform as other prominient Remain politicians of all parties. JOIN THE LIBDEMS