The World - News from March 4, 1988
Britain’s 110-year-old Liberal Party and the 7-year-old Social Democrats merged to become Britain’s third-largest political party--the Social and Liberal Democrats. They will confront Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s ruling Conservative Party on the right and Neil Kinnock’s socialist Labor Party on the left. The Liberals’ leader, David Steel, and Social Democratic chief Robert Maclennan formally presented the new party at a London news conference. The two struggling parties had approved the merger in balloting marked by surprisingly low member participation.
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