Labour in Disguise? Liberal Democrat MPs,1997–2001

Abstract

This article analyses Liberal Democrat voting in the 1997 parliament. Overall, Liberal Democrat MPs were most likely to find themselves voting with the Labour government than with the Conservatives. But the Liberal Democrats became noticeably less supportive of the government, and more favourable towards the Conservatives, as the parliament went on. There are also clear differences between different types of votes, with the Liberal Democrats being much more likely to support the government over votes on the principle of legislation than on the detail. To use the Party's own phrase of constructive opposition, the data appear to indicate that they began to stress the ‘opposition’, whilst still retaining the ‘constructive’.