As noted in an earlier post - Law and Lawyers: Johnson announces his departure (obiterj.blogspot.com) - the Conservative parliamentary Party effectively forced their leader (Boris Johnson) to resign and the party, and only that party, is choosing his successor.
The 2019 general election - held
under the UK's "first-past-the-post" system - was won (decisively) by the Conservative Party under Johnson's leadership. The Queen then appointed him as Prime Minister.Her Majesty acted in accordance with the established constitutional convention that the individual best able to command the confidence of the House of Commons is appointed as PM.
It follows that we are now in a factual situation in which the Conservative party is choosing the next Prime Minister since, by the same convention, the Queen will appoint the person who the party chooses.
Meanwhile, Johnson continues as Prime Minister even though it is clear that he no longer has the confidence of his own party let alone the House of Commons.
This has resulted in some interesting comments on Twitter and elsewhere.
Comments:
Tweet 1 - "Why the hell are we having a televised leaders' debate? If they want to let the people who choose our PM be entirely selected from fee-paying members of their private club, we shouldn't be giving the candidates airtime on public television."
My reply - "Ok - so let the private club choose and not even expose the candidates to the public. That's what you are suggesting - isn't it? At least now the public had a chance to see Mordaunt, Badenoch, Tugendhat. Until a week ago they were mostly unknown to general public."
Tweet 2 - "I’m not entirely persuaded this is what democracy is all about. Around 365 Tory MPs and 150k Tory Party members will decide which prime minister to inflict on the rest of us. It’s what passes for democracy in our democracy, but it’s not very democratic."
My reply - "Maybe then the constitutional position needs to change so that a GE is required if a governing party changes its leader? What if leader resigns (as Cameron, Blair did)? What if a leader dies in office? This would be a major change to constitutional arrangements."
The writer of Tweet 2 acknowledged by saying - ""It would be a major change."
Codification?
Some people have used the present situation as a reason to call for a written (or codified) constitution BUT they never seem to articulate what exactly would be in such a document.
There could be advantages to having a codified constitution but those have to be weighed against the problems that could occur.
Documents can be short and just set out basic points or they can be very lengthy as they attempt to deal with every possible situation. Somewhere in between may be an answer but not every point would be addressed whichever option was chosen.
Codified constitutions still require interpretation and that is usually the province of a powerful court as in the USA - previous post.
Constitutions can be difficult to change since they often require a special procedure for amendment. Some form of "special procedure" is needed to prevent the document being at the mercy of the latest bunch of politicians in power.
Arguments for and against codification are set out in this article published by the Constitution Unit - Do we need a written constitution? | The Constitution Unit Blog (constitution-unit.com)
None of the above argues against changes that would, at least in my view, be beneficial to the UK as a democratic nation. The major change I would advocate is to replace the first past the post system with proportional representation. - previous post.
Examples from the Commonwealth:
Many nations have formal, written, constitutions and below are links to those for Australia, New Zealand, Canada.
Such constitutions are the outcome of a lengthy history. The documents are quite lengthy and require considerable study. In every case, the constitution does not tell the whole story since there are always "conventions" or "practices" surrounding how the constitution operates in practice.
All of those major nations continue to have HM The Queen as Head of State. The Queen is represented in each nation by a Governor General and there is a Prime Minister.
In none of those countries does it follow that a general election would be legally required in circumstances similar to those in the UK at present.
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