UK

Tim Farron resigns as leader of Liberal Democrats

Party failed to make significant gains in UK election after lacklustre campaign

Tim Farron: the Lib Dems won 12 seats in the UK election, an increase of three, but had a disappointing campaign. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Tim Farron: the Lib Dems won 12 seats in the UK election, an increase of three, but had a disappointing campaign. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Wed Jun 14 2017 - 18:49

The leader of the UK's Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, has announced his resignation as leader of the pro-EU party.

The Lib Dems added three seats in last week’s UK election, an improvement on their disastrous 2015 performance, but their 12-seat haul masked embarrassing defeats for Britain’s so-called third party.

The party’s former leader Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister to David Cameron in the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition from 2010 to 2015, was the biggest casualty of the election.

Mr Farron clung on to his seat in Westmorland and Lonsdale in Cumbria, but his majority fell from 8,949 to just 777, a byproduct of a lacklustre campaign in which he struggled to be noticed.

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The party had sought to tap the 48 per cent who voted Remain in the Brexit referendum last year by pledging to hold a second referendum, but the strategy failed.

Possible candidates to replace Mr Farron as party leader include Vince Cable, Ed Davey and Jo Swinson,

Agencies