The Libertarian Party of the UK
On January 1st 2008 the United Kingdom founded its own libertarian party. This is great news for a part of the world where third parties often succeed, and the acceleration toward a police state is often greater than it is here (such as public surveillance cameras). This party appears to be a carbon copy of our own and that of Canada, a sign of our influence, rather than something that developed from their own politics, so what future it has in their system is anybody's guess.
British politics seems mired in antiquity to us, just as ours confuses them in return. Their head of state is not their head of government, their parliament is divided between a House of Lords and House of Commons (although as of 2009 the House of Lords will no longer be supreme judicial authority).* Their two major parties are the Labor Party whose platform is that of the working-class revolutions of three generations ago, and the Conservative Party which is, strictly speaking, what's left of the opposition of that movement. And yet some of the decisions which come from this body seem like generic 21st Century pragmatism toward a choiceless society.
To secure a majority these two often cajole a third party, the Liberal Democrats. So it's not that foreign a system after all, in fact our own could evolve into this form someday if we abandoned the labels our major parties have held all this time. "Republicanism" barely exists anymore so Republicans could easily gravitate into a Conservative Party, never having to adjust their platform again. This would leave the minority of self-declared liberals their own Liberal Democratic Party. As for moderates, a "working man's party" is an easy banner to flock behind, ever since the formation of unions and works like the Communist Manifesto and On the Waterfront. This view of citizenship through the workplace is the source of the pragmatic collectivist measures which can destroy liberty and the counterproductive individual. The belief that our jobs are not what makes us citizens rests with libertarians, which secures our necessary place both in this country and theirs (albeit in an even lesser minority).
The LPUK is "still developing its platform" beyond basic commitment to the libertarian ideals,** however the Libertarian Alliance has been around since 1967 and covers too many issues to list, along with libertarianuk.net which has a topical blog including the article "The Libertarian Monarchist" by Jackart. Further advancement of this movement in Britain would have global influence spawning the party in even more countries, but for now can be a window to looking into those movements we usually hear nothing about. The libertarian party of Australia was founded in 2005. The Libertarische Partij of the Netherlands split in 2003 over the practical vs. purist debate, and the Russian Libertarian Movement was a failure. In most other countries affiliated parties call themselves "liberal", which may just be semantics or the whole concept of liberalism might be lumped in. A full listing is at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_libertarian_political_parties. Kudos to every nation that joins the global family of libertarianism.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_politics
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_%28United_Kingdom%29
If you have opinions to add to this thread send them to russo@richmondliberty.org and they will be posted. We welcome your input!