Basically, unlike the US, there's no direct election for the UK's political leader. The Queen is titular Head of State, and the Prime Minister is selected by majority of MPs. In a 2-party system, that's easy, but in a multi-party system where one party cannot command a majority on its own it comes down to negotiations between parties. Typically the party with the most MPs gets first stab at it, but if that fails they can look for alternatives. If no-one can command a majority, it can lead to a stand-off - see Belgium - or to a new election - see Israel.
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UK Politics Discussion Thread
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 (August 7th, 2019, 09:22)T-hawk Wrote: Question from an American outsider: What exactly does "form a government" mean here? I see that phrase keep recurring but it's foreign to me. The US presidency and Congress just always exist, they don't need to be formed each election cycle. It sounds roughly akin to the US president appointing his cabinet? To get more specific regarding The Cabinet and "forming a government", think of the Queen as the equivalent of the President. She appoints a cabinet (ie: the "Government" made up of Members of Parliament. By tradition these are leading members of the party that controls of Houses of Parliament (specifically the House of Commons now). These are her Ministers. One of them is in charge of the others, hence "Prime" Minister. That was how it started, and how it still technically is today. However, over time real decision-making power went from the Monarch to the Prime Minister. So now, by tradition (remember, no written constitution, just hundreds of years of continuous parliamentary practice and precedent), the leader of the party that controls the House of Commons is appointed PM by the Queen. That leader is an elected Member of Parliament just like all the others. The PM then picks who gets to be in the Cabinet from among his colleagues in the House (but I think technically they are still appointed by the Queen). These Ministers then become head of the various government departments that make up the State, like the Presidential cabinet in the US. So the process of "forming a government" is essentially determining who has control of the House of Commons, and therefore who is appointed PM by the Queen, and who then gets to decide who's in the cabinet. Normally this happens following an election, but nothing is happening "normally" in British politics these days. The main difference between the UK (plus many (most?) other democracies) and the US is that the Head of State has no real power, and the person actually in charge of the country and their cabinet comes from the elected representatives. If you took the current US government and Congress and turned turned into a Westminster style democracy, Nancy Pelosi would be in charge and represent the country abroad, and other congressional Democrats would head the various department. And a powerless Trump would be obliged to do what she asks, which is an amusing thought.
To add to others. Systems like the US or France, in which the head of state is elected by the people and/or has the power are often named presidential democracy, while systems like in the UK, the Netherlands or Germany are called parliamentary democracy.
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Pitboss: PB39, PB40, PB52, PB59 Useful Collections: Pickmethods, Mapmaking, Curious Civplayer Buy me a coffee  Mr. Cairo Wrote:The PM then picks who gets to be in the Cabinet from among his colleagues in the House (but I think technically they are still appointed by the Queen). These Ministers then become head of the various government departments that make up the State, like the Presidential cabinet in the US. I would like to add that while technically the chancellor in Germany could pick his/her cabinet at will, the reality is that in a multi-party-coalition, ministries are allocated to a specific party during the initial negotiation process. Let's say Merkel's conservatives would enter a coalition with the Green Party: In that case, the Greens would almost certainly demand control over the "Federal Ministry for Environment" and they would pick the minister among themselves. Technically, Merkel could remove the minister at any time, but in that case the Green Party would very likely leave the coalition and Merkel would be without a majority.
Brexit crash-out at 60% at predictit. That's too high but it shows the power of vote-splitting. I would go with ranked-choice ballot General election with top-2 runoffs for Open primaries if I were to make a democracy. USA open primaries shut out 3rd parties from doing anything other than spoilering because it's much more efficient to primary someone than make a new party so we just have to get rid of it.
They can be, but I don't think his have risen to that level yet
 .BJ seemed to acknowledge after meeting with Merkel that the onus was on his government to offer an alternative to the TM deal. Then on the BBC he stated it "all depends on our EU friends and partners". The EU leadership was surprisingly open to a different deal, even Macron moderated his hard line stance. I'm not sure what more he could have expected. Feels a bit like a tennis match where the ball is in your court, and you blame your opponent if the rally ends  .Darrell (August 25th, 2019, 09:08)darrelljs Wrote: The EU leadership was surprisingly open to a different deal, even Macron moderated his hard line stance. In reality the EU leadership is not open to a different deal at all. Merkel basically told Johnson that if he can come up with a solution that makes the backstop obsolete in the next 30 days she would consider his plan. There have been negotiations for years and everybody knows that this magical solution does not exist. The most Johnson can hope for is the backstop with another name, so he can claim he avoided "backstop" if he agrees to a deal. |
