It’s conference season in the United Kingdom, and the first Britain-wide political party to court media attention at their days-long meeting are the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems themselves will claim they’re gaining good electoral ground: they increased their vote share in the recent European elections, and have scooped up several new recruits in Parliament from members defecting from Labour, the Tories, and the disastrous new incarnation Change UK/The Independent Group. The party put their success down to their position on the European Union calling for a second referendum, the idea being that having observed the veritable mess that has beset Parliament, and seen the country tear through three prime ministers, the country may have changed their mind on membership of the European Union.

But in pursuing electoral success above all else, the party under new leader Jo Swinson are also laying several traps of their own making. After their disastrous decision to enter a coalition with David Cameron’s Conservatives in 2010, the 2015 general election saw them drop from third place, from fifty-seven seats to eight, tied with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist party — a common political joke pointed out they could hold parliamentary meetings in a large cab — and their party leader Nick Clegg humiliatingly lost his seat. A meager four more seats won in 2017 showed the electorate still felt the main political choice in Britain was between Labour and the Conservatives, with more backing the Scottish National party, and that few had forgiven them for reneging on their promise to vote against a rise in college tuition fees, given they had previously performed strongly in university towns.

Swinson has already faced backlash for the Lib Dems’ willingness to bolster Lib Dem numbers by accepting any and all comers through defections rather than electoral success. Many newcomers, such as Chuka Umunna, have come from Change UK, as it has become apparent the new party’s creation was a huge electoral error. More controversial have been the Conservative recruits, including Phillip Lee, the Tory defector who caused Boris Johnson’s working majority to drop to zero. Lib Dem members left the party in protest over his skepticism over same-sex marriage, and the fact he tabled an amendment to the Immigration Bill banning HIV-positive migrants.