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Constitutional Question
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I never studied politics (I had a life back then) so I don't know the answer to this question.
If a party "wins" the election but their leader (and deputy) lose their seat - who does the Queen ask to form a Government?
If a party "wins" the election but their leader (and deputy) lose their seat - who does the Queen ask to form a Government?
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I think...If say, Blair had lost his seat at the last election but Lab had a majority, the Queen would ask another Labour MP to form a government. I would presume Labour Party rules would somehow be flexible enough to make this person a caretaker leader.
If say someone in the Cabinet lost their seat but the PM wanted them to keep their post they could be nominated to Lords; the Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, etc does not need to be an MP. I'm not sure if the PM could technically be in the Lords with a spokesperson in the Commons. If a PM can be simply in the Lords then I would guess that a caretaker leader could do that to enable a PM who has lost their seat to carry on - then no doubt they'd be parachuted into a seat for a by-election to get back into the Commons. Would be all very embarrassing though.
From: Dan McPedant
Message:
We don't have a Constitution, ours is 'unwritten'.
That is all.
I know that the party which wins the election can elect a new leader, but the term of office starts the day after the election. What I want to know is what happens in the meantime.
In the US there is a clear line of accession and so it would take a huge disaster before they didn't know who their leader was, it's the same with our Royals. I don't think that it is so clear with Parliament.
NB It's also worth noting that the Queen doesn't have to ask the actual "winner" of the election to form a Govt...
Actually, writing with a clearer head, I was halfway there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_constitution
Must brush up on my pedant.
And strictly speaking the PM doesn't have to be leader of the Party. Chamberlain retained leadership of the Conservative Party and Churchill was PM in 1940.
And strictly speaking the PM doesn't have to be leader of the Party. Chamberlain retained leadership of the Conservative Party and Churchill was PM in 1940.
Come on, I though that there were supposed to be well informed, intelligent, people using this forum - doesn't anybody know the answer?
In the event that the leader of a party isn't elected I would expect the Queen to hold emergency talks with the largest party and ask them to nominate the person who should be PM from amongst their MPs (and theoretically at least their Lords). It would then be up to that political party whether that person also became leader.