Perhaps the "coalition government" was a natural arrangement then. lol, just kidding. Seriously, I don't get that. The Lib Dems used to be somewhat libertarian in past decades, but during the Blair era they became the most left-wing of the three main British parties. There's a RIGHT wing of the Lib Dems? Maybe there's a handful of british style "James Meeks Democrats" in the Lib Dems who are pro-traditional marriage and pro-life but far left on everything else (it appears four of their MPs voted against gay marriage), but I can't imagine any of their members would be right wing.
>> UKIP could conceivably beat the lib dems for 3rd place and still end up with zero seats. Perhaps they should have passed that instant runoff voting. <<
I think there needs to be a realignment of the political parties in the UK, in all honesty. Right now the UKIP is the only uniformly conservative party, but they're a single issue party and haven't been able to win any seats in the House of Commons because the Conservative Party are the only ones with the infrastructure to do so. Under Cameron, the Conservative Party is not run by conservatives, it's run by left-of-center politicians. Forget the Lib Dems, Cameron's political views differ little from "new Labour" under Tony Blair. Both he and Blair are center-left and profess to be moderate and business friendly, and pro-military, but very socially liberal and pursue the envirowacko agenda, and support handing over British sovereignty. Outside of England, the "conservative" parties in the UK are uniformly unionist and pro-monarchy. The idea of a "conservative Republican" is unheard of, and conservative Catholics in Northern Ireland have to vote against their own self-interests no matter what party they choose. The conservative parties there are anti-Catholic and pro-Church of England, and the pro-Catholic parties are rabid socialists.
Cameron and the 127 or so "Conservative" MPs who supported gay marriage and other "progressive" causes he's touting need to merge with what's left of Blairites in the Labour Party, along with the far lefties in the Lib Dem party that are already in the Cameron government. Those commies can call themselves "British Progressive Party", or "Socialist Democratic Party of the United Kingdom" or something along those lines.
The remaining 175 or so Conservative MPs need to merge with the UKIP, along with the 25 or so sane Labour Party members who opposed gay marriage, and a handful of "right wing" Lib Dems (by my count, we're talking 3 or 4 MPs tops, the rest of the Lib Dem party I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole), and bring some minor parties into the fold like the Christian Peoples Alliance and the Christian Party, they'll join once the Cameron CINOs are dumped. Like Harper in Canada, the new umbrella organization for all these conservative groups will be called British Freedom Party (Cameron's ruined the word "Conservative")
All the political parties in Northern Ireland (Democratic Unionist Party, Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, Ulster Unionist Party, Traditional Unionist Voice, etc.) need to be disbanded. In their place would be be a four party system: Catholic Conservative Party, Catholic Socialist Party, Protestant Conservative Party, Protestant Socialist Party. They'd all be officially neutral on the independence question and leave it a conscience vote for individual members. Anyone who is REALLY gung ho independence can join the Sinn Fein terrorist party, and anyone who is REALLY pro-Queen Lizzie can just join the major UK parties since none of them will ever "officially" propose disbanding the monarchy.
Whatever is left over (the British National Party, the various Green Parties, the lunatic Lib Dem members who don't want to be part of the British Progressive Party), can form some NAZI-Communist alliance like what was attempted in Russia in 1991, and call themselves British Totaltarian Party or United British Fascists, and make sure they get on the ballot every election so they take votes from the British Progressive Party.
The new system would thus be:
1) British Freedom Party, lead by MP Edward Leigh, deputy Lord Christopher Monckton (give him a seat in the House of Lords already!) MAJOR PARTY.
2) Socialist Party of the United Kingdom (British Progressives), lead by MP David Cameron, deputy Nick Clegg. MAJOR PARTY.
3) United British Fascists, lead by Ken Livingstone or someone along those lines. MINOR PARTY.
There, problem solved. :-)
Every party large enough to have internal divisions has a “right-wing”. If it’s a leftist party then the term is relative of course. ;p
The “right wing” of the Lib Dems= the fiscal centrists, willing to cut spending, not virulently socialist like the rest, those types it seems to me have little to disagree with Cameron Tories on, Cameron is more Eurospectic but that may be pandering on his part.
See the “Orange Book”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orange_Book:_Reclaiming_Liberalism
Note the term “economically liberal” is what we would call “fiscal conservatism”.
The party is uniformly socially liberal and pro EU as far as I know. Socially conservative leftists would be in Labour.
Labour which is seems to be moving back to “old Labour” under Miliband has deeply cut into Lib Dem support in the polls.
If the lib dems are raped in the next election as they may be it wouldn’t shock me to see their rump merge into the Tories, leading to defections to UKIP by the traditional Tories. There’s your realignment scenario.