Current Affairs The Conservative Party

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tsubaki said:
That isn’t how it’s ever worked in the past - they (senior government figures and MPs) usually decide who will be PM very quickly and then that person goes to the Palace.

The idea of a “caretaker” PM isn’t one that has ever existed in our constitution, except when an already existing PM has announced they are stepping down but hold office until a successor can be elected by the party.

After all the people who get the office Deputy PM tend to be the ones who absolutely wouldn’t be the successor in the event of a sudden event - eg Prescott being deputy PM for Blair, or Clegg being deputy for Cameron, and now Raab.

If Johnson popped his clogs overnight would Raab be PM tomorrow morning? Almost certainly not, they’d just go with the one who was most able to get another government together.
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But its zippo to do with the Queen. And Rabb would assume the office until the 1922 lot or the whips or whoever decide. But either way, the Tories would need a new party leader. Whoever that is would be PM until the next election.
 
roydo said:
But its zippo to do with the Queen. And Rabb would assume the office until the 1922 lot or the whips or whoever decide. But either way, the Tories would need a new party leader. Whoever that is would be PM until the next election.
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Appointing the PM is everything to do with the Queen, in fact she (as monarch) is the only one who can appoint a PM.

If she wanted to she could ignore the result of an election and appoint someone other than the leader of the party that won a General Election, on the basis that she thought they wouldn’t be able to command a majority of the Commons and form a government. This might well have happened if Corbs had won in 2017 but by a small (1-30) majority.

It’s not unprecedented either for the MP who is leader of a party to not be PM (Chamberlain was leader of the Tories but not PM between losing office in mid-1940 and his death).
 
tsubaki said:
Appointing the PM is everything to do with the Queen, in fact she (as monarch) is the only one who can appoint a PM.

If she wanted to she could ignore the result of an election and appoint someone other than the leader of the party that won a General Election, on the basis that she thought they wouldn’t be able to command a majority of the Commons and form a government. This might well have happened if Corbs had won in 2017 but by a small (1-30) majority.

It’s not unprecedented either for the MP who is leader of a party to not be PM (Chamberlain was leader of the Tories but not PM between losing office in mid-1940 and his death).
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Its absolutely nothing to do with the Queen. The "power" she has is pure theatre. If she ignored an election result, the HOC could just vote her out of existence, whether she liked a result or not.
 
roydo said:
Its absolutely nothing to do with the Queen. The "power" she has is pure theatre. If she ignored an election result, the HOC could just vote her out of existence, whether she liked a result or not.
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It is absolutely to do with the Queen - in our constitution, the only person who determines who is the Prime Minister is the monarch. If she refused to accept a PM there would be a crisis (and it came close to that in the 19th century with Victoria a couple of times), and one that wouldn’t easily be sorted out.

There is nothing in our constitution that says who the next PM would be if the current PM dies - it is a matter for the monarch based on the advice given to her about who could lead her government.

I mean you and I never get to vote for who would be PM, do we? We vote for MPs who then form groups in Parliament.
 
tsubaki said:
It is absolutely to do with the Queen - in our constitution, the only person who determines who is the Prime Minister is the monarch. If she refused to accept a PM there would be a crisis (and it came close to that in the 19th century with Victoria a couple of times), and one that wouldn’t easily be sorted out.

There is nothing in our constitution that says who the next PM would be if the current PM dies - it is a matter for the monarch based on the advice given to her about who could lead her government.

I mean you and I never get to vote for who would be PM, do we? We vote for MPs who then form groups in Parliament.
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We havnt got a constitution. We have a convention basically. All the "powers" the monarch have were an appeasement when Parliament won the civil war. Sure, a monarch can try and be the big cheese, but ultimately, Parliament has the ultimate power to dissolve the monarchy, the same power is not within the monarchs power.
 
roydo said:
We havnt got a constitution. We have a convention basically. All the "powers" the monarch have were an appeasement when Parliament won the civil war. Sure, a monarch can try and be the big cheese, but ultimately, Parliament has the ultimate power to dissolve the monarchy, the same power is not within the monarchs power.
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We do have a constitution, it just isn't written down. Also the monarch literally has the power to dissolve Parliament, it happens before every general election.
 
tsubaki said:
We do have a constitution, it just isn't written down. Also the monarch literally has the power to dissolve Parliament, it happens before every general election.
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We are going round in circles. Parliament trumps the crown in every single way. Influence, opinion, sure, they are taken into consideration at times. And sure, every single parliamentary bill has to signed by the monarch to give Royal Assent, but I very much doubt that many, if any, have been left blank in modern decades.
 
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