this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
514 points (97.4% liked)

World News

39183 readers
2123 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AngryCommieKender 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Ummm.... Why the variable timeline? I don't really understand US politics, and I'm an American. I've no hope of really understanding the UK system... Still, how do you not just vote in a new government/PM/MPs on a set schedule? That's the most not British thing I've ever heard of. I thought you guys love routines.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We have the same system in Australia. Constitution sets a maximum govt term but a parliamentary majority can call an election at any time before then.

[–] AngryCommieKender 2 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Ok, but why does the same party stay in power if a vote happens early? Seems like the conservatives have had control of England for the last 40-50 years, basically since Thatcher.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're right but only because New Labour was basically Conservative.

[–] AngryCommieKender 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

So the same thing as the "Neo-Liberals" in the US, gotcha.

[–] Z3k3 3 points 11 months ago

The UK. Not just England

[–] Dendie 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Think back to the time George W. Bush was around and we had Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - both from the Labour Party

[–] AngryCommieKender 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Blair I remember, Brown I don't. I thought Blair was a Tory.

[–] Dendie 3 points 11 months ago

New Labour, so pretty close

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

"New Labour" as it was branded under Blair, was basically a more right leaning Labour. Brown was Chancellor to Blair and took over after his resignation, much like everyone since Cameron (who himself was initially elected as leader of a coalition to a hung parliament).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

So, voters elect Members of Parliament during general elections not a prime minister, the political party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons usually forms the government. Since we don’t elect the PM the king ‘invites’ the leader of the majority party to form a government since they’ll likely have the support of the majority portion of MPs, that person becomes the prime minister.

This leads to the slightly unusual situation where the incumbent party can essentially decide to replace the prime minister at will, this is usually accomplished by either an internal party process (1922 committee for the Conservative Party) or if the prime minister decides to ‘resign’. The incumbent party can then elect a party leader using whatever process they like iirc, once they have chosen a leader the king asks that person to become prime minister.

tl;dr the uk electorate don’t choose the prime minister directly, you elect a local MP, and the party leader of the majority party becomes PM so replacing the party leader replaces the prime minister.

ETA: the government can call a general election early and have done in the past but it’s not always in their best interest if they think they’re going to lose

[–] AngryCommieKender 2 points 11 months ago

Thanks for the explanation. I assume this is the compromise that England arrived at sometime around the signing of The Magna Carta?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

resign

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.