Conservatives opposing it. The referendum resulted in the Conservative's favour and the first-past-the-post system was maintained. Political parties Since the 1920s the two main political parties in the UK, in terms of the number of seats in the House of Commons, are the Conservative and Unionist Party and the Labour Party. The Scottish National Party has the second largest party membership, but a smaller number of MPs as it only fields candidates for constituencies in Scotland. The modern day Conservative Party was founded in 1834 and is an outgrowth of the Tory movement or party, which began in 1678. Today it is still colloquially referred to as the Tory Party and members/supporters are referred to as Tories. The Liberal Democrats (or "Lib Dems") were founded in 1988 by an amalgamation of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a right-wing Labour breakaway movement formed in 1981. The Liberals and SDP had contested elections together as the SDP–Liberal Alliance for seven years previously. The modern Liberal Party had been founded in 1859 as an outgrowth of the Whig movement or party (which began at the same time as the Tory Party and was its historical rival) as well as the Radical and Peelite tendencies. The Liberal Party was one of the two dominant parties (along with the Conservatives) from its founding until the 1920s, when it rapidly declined in popularity, and was supplanted on the left by the Labour Party, which was founded in 1900 and formed its first minority government in 1924. Since that time, the Labour and Conservative parties have been dominant, with the Liberals (later Liberal Democrats) being the third-largest party until 2015, when they lost 49 of their 57 seats, they now hold 11 seats. They lost 10 seats in the 2019 general election. Currently the Scottish National Party is the third largest party and have been since the 2015 General Election when they gained 56 seats. Founded in 1934, the SNP advocates Scottish independence and has had continuous representation in Parliament since 1967. The SNP currently leads a minority government in the Scottish Parliament, and has 48 MPs in the House of Commons after the 2019 general election. Minor parties also hold seats in parliament: Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, has had continuous representation in Parliament since 1974, and currently hold three of the 40 Welsh seats (with a fourth member which the