Meadowcroft was President of the Liberal Party until 2005, though according to Wikipedia he hadn't been very actively involved for years, due to spending much of his time abroad. In 2005 he stood down from the post and Cllr Steve Radford was elected instead.
Then in 2007 Meadowcroft left the Liberal Party altogether and joined the LibDems. He published an article in The Liberator (I think) giving his reasons. If I can find the link, I'll post it.
From memory, he said it was because:
a) he thought that for a few policies where the Liberals and LibDems agreed, for example opposition to ID cards and to illegal foreign wars, it was a better use of his effort to pursue those policies through a bigger party.
b) he enthused at some length about Britain's future in EU. He didn't explicitly say "and my former colleagues in the Liberal Party don't support it, so that's another reason I'm joining the LibDems!" but that was the clear implication.
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