Federal organisation

Young Liberals is the main party, organised in Great Britain on a federal basis, comprising Welsh Young Liberals in Wales, Scottish Young Liberals in Scotland and English Young Liberals in England.

Executive

The federal organisation of Young Liberals organises liaisons with Liberal Democrats and affiliated organisations. The Federal Executive (current positions: Chair, Vice-Chair, Events Officer, Campaigns Officer, Communications Officer, Finance Officer, International Officer, Policy Officer, Membership Development Officer, Accessibility, Diversity and Standards Officer and Non Portfolio Officer,^[9]) operates alongside committees for Conferences, Policy and International affairs. These committees, barring ex officio members such as representatives from state organisations and delegates from the executive, are elected by the Young Liberals membership via an all-member ballot, terms beginning on 1 November and are responsible to Conference. The English, Scottish and Welsh representatives are elected by the memberships of the state organisations - English Young Liberals, Scottish Young Liberals and Welsh Young Liberals.^[10]

Committees

In addition to the Executive, there are six committees which are responsible for the administration and implementation of its area, working alongside the executive. Committees are chaired by the Officer that is responsible for that area, for example the Policy Officer chairs the Policy Committee, and the other members of the committee are made up of members elected by the membership alongside the Officers and, with the exception of the International Committee and Diversity Committee, representatives from each of the three state organisations.

Branches

Outside of universities, Young Liberals eschews a formal, hierarchical branch structure, instead encouraging members to organise themselves and to use their local Liberal Democrat Party for financial affairs.^[14] Active members communicate with their local Youth Chair, who liaises with the parent party's representatives and with the federal Young Liberals executive. In this way the activities of young and student members remain formally independent from but closely engaged with the Liberal Democrats.

Young Liberals has had an active branch in Northern Ireland since 2010, under the name of Liberal Youth Northern Ireland, which operates as the youth branch of the Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats. Since 2014 it has become an official branch of Young Liberals, though for administrative purposes it is a branch of the English Young Liberals rather than a separate state branch. Liberal Youth Northern Ireland maintains a close working relationship with Alliance Youth, the youth wing of the Alliance Party.

Conference locations

Year	Summer Conference/Activate Venue		Winter Conference Venue		Notes
2010	NW	University of Manchester, Manchester	Y&H	University of York, York
2011		'None'	EoE	University of Essex	Essex conference called "Autumn Conference" no Activate held
2012	SE/SE	Adversane, Billingshurst	NW	Manchester
2013	SE/SC	Watchfield, Oxfordshire		Cardiff
2014	EoE	Cambridge		None
	Winter Conference Venue		Summer Conference/Activate Venue
2015	Y&H	Leeds	WM	Birmingham	From 2015 Winter Conference was held at the start of the year instead of the end
2016		Edinburgh	SW/WC	Bristol
2017	Y&H	Sheffield	EM	University of Nottingham, Nottingham
2018	SE/SC	Oxford		Swansea University, Swansea
2019		Glasgow	LON	London
2020		None		Online	Summer Conference was due to be held in Birmingham, but was moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2021		Online	NW	Manchester/Online hybrid	Winter Conference was due to be held in-person, but was moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Summer Conference first conference to be a hybrid conference and allow attendance online and in person.
2022		Edinburgh	WM	Birmingham	All conferences from Manchester 2021 onwards are a hybrid conference so both conferences hybrid.
2023	SE/SC	Reading	NE	Newcastle/Gateshead
2024	Y&H	Sheffield

Special Conferences

In addition to the two ordinary Conferences the Young Liberals may also hold additional "Special Conferences". The Special Conferences require a requisition submitted to the Young Liberals Federal Executive signed by 40 full members, including at least 4 members of each State Organisation. The Special Conferences debates business specified in the requisition, although additional business may be taken at the discretion of the Executive.

The threshold of a Special Conference used to be significantly higher, standing at 200 members, however with the success of Online Conferences it was lowered as they could be held online with ease.

Liberal Democrat mergers

The Liberal Party and the SDP each had separate student and youth wings, including the Young Liberals and the Young Social Democrats until their merger in 1988. These merged in England to form the Student Liberal Democrats and the Young Liberal Democrats of England. In Scotland, there was a separate Scottish Young Liberal Democrats (which also included students of all ages). Liberal Democrat Youth and Students was itself created in 1993 from a merger of the Student Liberal Democrats and the Young Liberal Democrats of England who had shared many resources in the run-up. The merger talks were overseen by a committee which included Sarah Gurling, who later married the late Charles Kennedy. LDYS reorganised into a federal structure in 2000 and then admitted Scottish Young Liberal Democrats as its Scottish federal unit in 2002 - forming a single GB-wide organisation for the first time since the combined ULS-NLYL committees of the 1970s.

The organisation was then known as Liberal Democrat Youth and Students (LDYS). Spring 2008 saw LDYS renamed as Liberal Youth, at an event hosted by the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg.^[15] Liberal Youth is the successor organisation to all the youth and student wings of the Liberal Democrats, the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, including the Union of Liberal Students, the National League of Young Liberals, (the Liberal party's youth wings), the Young Social Democrats and Students for Social Democracy (the youth and student wings of the Social Democratic Party).

List of chairs