Libertarianism in the United Kingdom is a political movement concerned with the pursuit of propertarian libertarian ideals in the United Kingdom. While not as prominent as libertarianism in the United States, after the 1980s and the economic liberalism of the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, the libertarian movement became more prominent in British politics. In addition to the recently founded Libertarian Party, there is a libertarian faction of the mainstream Conservative Party that espouses Thatcherism.
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Libertarian parties
The Liberal Party was formed in 1989 from those opposed to the merger between the Liberal Party and the Social Democrat Party and claims 25 councillors. The Libertarian Party UK is a political party founded on 1 January 2008. Since 2012, there have been attempts to form new parties. The Independent Libertarian Network was founded by Gavin Webb with a "minimal party" strategy and a focus on local government. The Pro Liberty Party was launched in September 2012 with a focus on awareness raising. The Scottish Libertarian Party was formed as a separate party in 2013 and officially registered in 2014.
Relationship with the Conservative Party
Jason Walsh, in an opinion piece, held that the 1980s economic liberalism of Margaret Thatcher was "libertarianism-lite", compared to minimal state views of more modern libertarians, which were becoming more popular after ten years of New Labour's "increasingly authoritarian policies".
The Conservative Party libertarian advocacy group, the Conservative Way Forward, is led by Alan Duncan.
Relationship with the UKIP
As leader of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), Nigel Farage sought to broaden the public perception of UKIP beyond being a party solely seeking to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union, to one of being a party broadly standing for libertarian values and reductions in government bureaucracy. The party describes itself as a "libertarian, non-racist Eurosceptic party". While Farage denied in 2007 that the party's strategy was "targeting David Cameron as such", political scientist Chris Robinson opines that Farage may well have been hoping that this expansion of the party platform would attract voters disenchanted with Cameron and thinking him "too Tony Blair-like". In 2010, UKIP's call to ban the burkha in public places was criticised by Shami Chakrabarti as contrary to libertarianism.
Libertarian think tanks
There are a number of think tanks that are explicitly libertarian or espouse libertarian views. Educational charity the Libertarian Alliance is the oldest and most explicitly libertarian think tank, existing "[to explain] the benefits of political and economic freedom and of toleration in the sense put forth by such philosophers as John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, F.A. von Hayek, Karl Popper, and many others in the British liberal tradition." Politically neutral, it has united classical liberals, minarchists, anarcho-capitalists and even social anarchists. The Libertarian Alliance's founder, Chris Tame, was also the director of FOREST, the smokers' rights organisation. The more conservative Society for Individual Freedom, from which the Libertarian Alliance originally split, is its sister organisation.
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) is the oldest free-market think tank in the United Kingdom, and a progenitor of a large network of neoliberal think tanks around the world, as well as greatly shaping the Thatcher government's economic policies. The Centre for Policy Studies was set up by Thatcher and Keith Joseph for the purpose of advancing classical liberalism, while their Adam Smith Institute largely promotes free market regulatory and welfare reforms.
There are a few libertarian student societies at British universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics (the Hayek Society), University College London, King's College London, St Andrews, York, Sheffield, Loughborough, Durham, Queen's University Belfast and Warwick.
Prominent libertarians
Prominent British libertarians have included: