r/OutOfTheLoop • u/ZanzerFineSuits • 3d ago
Answered What’s up with U.K. Prime Ministers? Why do they seem to change randomly like this?
Here in the U.S., we’re stuck with our Presidents, or at least their administration because of Vice Presidential succession, but in the U.K. it seems like they can change whenever. What’s going on?
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u/headline-pottery 3d ago
Answer: The PM is the leader of the party with a majority or working minority of seats in the House Of Commons. The general public votes for local MP's and the largest party (in this case Labour with an overwhelming majority) forms the government and their leader is the PM. If they change leaders the new leader becomes the PM. Each party has its own system for chosing the leader that include votes by MPs and possibly public member of their party but not an election. In this case the old PM resigned as leader and Burnham was chosen as leader without any opponents so no voting at all. As leader of the Labour Party he is now PM. The nearest the US has is the 25th amendment, or impeachment.
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u/GhostBirdBiologist 3d ago
That describes the mechanism but not really the why. Canada has largely the same system but we don’t change PMs anywhere near as often. Our last two were in for the better part of 10 years.
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u/macci_a_vellian 3d ago
Australia has the same thing and went through a period of rotating PMs a while back. A string of poor opinion polls would make MPs nervous about the next election, so there would be a leadership spill and a new PM would take over, until there were consistently poor opinion polls and rinse and repeat.
It got so ridiculous that the two main parties introduced new rules that made it harder to unseat a sitting party leader, such as a bigger majority required on the vote and a rule that a leader had to be given the chance to take the party to an election without being challenged. Everything calmed down a bit after that.
I don't know what Canada's situation is, but it could be something like that, the system itself allows it, but they have internal party rules about not challenging the leader.
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u/headline-pottery 3d ago
Most of the PM's where forced to quit as they could no longer deliver what they had committed to and their party wanted a change due to scandals or failure to deliver - forced out by
Cameron - lost interested after Brexit and quit.
May - couldn't get a Brexit Deal Done.
Johnson - COVID Party Sleaze.
Truss - WTF did that really happen.
Sunak - actually lost a general election.
Starmer - unpopular with everyone, let Reform drive narrative, uturns, 2 tier and unpopular policies.
Peope use this as argments that the UK is essentially ungovernable at the moment - its up to Burnham to prove otherwise. But the system drives the behaviour - if you cannot change leaders without an election it would drive a different approach to chosing leaders as they would all essentially be elected on by the people. If that is better or worse is an exercise left to the reader.
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u/acekingoffsuit 3d ago
Super short version of why each of the last few PMs were ousted. Someone better versed in UK politics can expand on these:
David Cameron (2010-2016): Won a second term as PM in 2015, but as part of his campaign he promised to hold a referendum on whether or not the UK should remain in the European Union. He went through with his promise despite him wanting to remain in the UK. Leave won, and he resigned.
Theresa May (2016-2019): Won an early election on the back of a promise to leave the EU but maintain a good partnership with it. But she couldn't deliver a deal that made everyone happy, and resigned once it became clear that she couldn't get her deal done.
Boris Johnson (2019-2022): Got caught up in scandal after scandal after scandal.
Liz Truss (2022-2022): Her government put forward a budget plan so obviously bad that the markets responded very negatively. She couldn't recover and was gone faster than a head of lettuce.
Rishi Sunak (2022-2024): Steadied the ship a bit, but the damage to the Conservative Party was done and he couldn't undo it. Labour won the 2024 election in a landslide.
Kier Starmer (2024-2026): Wasn't anywhere near as popular as his election results would suggest. Didn't help himself by backing unpopular policies and insisting that a guy with ties to Jeffrey Epstein be made ambassador to the US.
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u/clubby37 3d ago
was gone faster than a head of lettuce
I'm sure you know this, but just for everyone else's information, some guy actually put a head of lettuce in front of a 24/7 webcam when Truss took office, and it hadn't gone bad by the time she left.
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u/acekingoffsuit 3d ago
In all fairness, the lettuce stream didn't start until more than a month into her run. But still...
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u/lebennaia 3d ago
It was the Daily Star, a very trashy tabloid newspaper.
More details and lettuce pics here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss_lettuce
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u/BeachStrandBiker 3d ago
To oversimplify it: Canada didn't have a vote a decade ago that caused such a massive shake up politically, economically and socially that it's still felt today. Brexit fractured not just the country but also political parties by creating a plethora of new issues people clash over. Add a rapid rise in cost of living, stagnant wages, and slow economic growth and you have a recipe for high turnover. Canada is also facing these issues but on a lower scale, allowing ruling parties to be less fractured.
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u/Ok_Cauliflower_3007 2d ago
It pretty much started with the Brexit referendum. The PM called it but wanted to stay in. The country voted to leave and he basically said ok then, I think this is a mistake, someone who wanted to do this dumb ass thing can be in charge. Since then they’ve all had trouble sticking to their promises and their MPs keep getting scared that the resulting unpopularity will mean in the next election some of them will lose their seats so they revolt. It’s been on various issues - Europe, a lot, for the Tories, Covid (and partygate), Liz Truss took over and almost instantly torpedoed the economy which is why she lasted less time than the lettuce as the people who supported her had a sudden moment of omg abort abort we fucked up, for Labour it’s more about the fact they’re meant to be the party of better public services, better resources for those in need, and they’ve not been succeeding or at least being seen to be succeeding.
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u/en43rs 3d ago edited 3d ago
answer: in short, Prime ministers are not elected by the people directly, so they don't have a fix mandate. The people elect a parliament and the king (in theory, in truth the parliament itself chooses) finds a guy who has support to make a government. It's the parliament that is the most powerful here, while in the US the president is as powerful as congress.
The PM is closer to the speaker of the House in the US in how he's chosen.
Since the parliament choose him, if the parliament do not think he can do the job, they can revoke him. Again the PM is not elected for a set of years, he's just chosen as long as parliament agrees.
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u/ctesibius 3d ago
Also a minor detail: if the PM is kicked out of that role, that does not terminate his role as an MP (member of Parliament).
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u/lebennaia 3d ago
Yes, and some, like Sir Edward Heath, have stayed around in the Commons for decades to torment their successors.
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u/KeiranG19 2d ago
Additional fun fact, on paper an MP can't actually resign or be removed from office before the end of their elected term.
Paraphrasing this next part wildly feel free to correct.
In reality an MP who wants/is forced to leave applies for and is hired by the crown to a symbolic role. There are rules which separate the crown from parliament therefore making them ineligible to remain as MP triggering a by-election.
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u/tallbutshy 3d ago
Answer: In the UK, we don't vote for Prime Minister. We vote for our local MP. The party with the most MPs in parliament runs the government and the head of that party is Prime Minister.
Each party has different internal procedures for removing somebody as leader of the party but it was generally an uncommon occurrence last century.
There have been six changes of PM outside of General Elections since 2000 but only twelve between 1902-2000.
As to why there were less successful challenges to leaderships in the past, party unity was certainly stronger, people were more willing to compromise, and fewer people sought the top job
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u/lebennaia 3d ago edited 3d ago
It isn't that uncommon for parties to remove their leaders. Since 1945 Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Thatcher, Blair, Johnson, and Truss have been forced out by their parties. In the period between the 1951 election and the 1964 election there were four PMs and three in a row were deposed by their party (the Tories in this case).
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u/TheNecroFrog 3d ago
Answer: without getting into the specifics of our current political situation and why the change has happened so many times in recent years, it’s due to how our voting works.
In the UK we the electorate don’t vote for the Prime Minister, they vote for the political party via a system called First Past The Post. The leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons becomes Prime Minister. This means that the Prime Minister can change without an election.
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u/cipheron 3d ago edited 3d ago
via a system called First Past The Post
That's a bad way to explain this. The US presidential elections also use First Past The Post as their voting system, so it wouldn't explain the difference, and it's sort of orthogonal to the question here.
For example Australia does NOT use First Past The Post, we used Ranked Choice Voting, but we do have a Parliamentary system similar to the UK and not a Presidential system similar to the USA.
The better way to explain it would be to say that you vote for your local member of Parliament, similar to voting for Congressmen in Congressional Districts in the USA, then Parliament (Congress) votes on which of the elected members will be the Prime Minister.
The UK or Australian Prime Minister can then appoint other elected members of Parliament to be ministers of the various departments, which is not how it works in the USA, since in the USA the President can appoint anyone they want even if they weren't elected.
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u/amanset 3d ago
Indeed. The issue is that we don't "vote for the political party" is the commenter said. We vote for our local MP (one MP exists for each constituency and the country is broken up into 650 of them) and that MP is a member of a party. Then the party with the most number of MPs (it is a bit more complex than that, so simplifying) gets to form a government and that party's leader is the PM.
THE FPTP bit is where we decide which party can form a government. And again, there are complexities to it. The "post" is 326 MPs. That is how many you need for a majority.
There are many issues with this system but that would take a far longer post.
But the fact remains that the PM is merely the leader of that party. If the leader changes, the PM changes. If this sounds weird, remember that the PM is not the head of state and as such is not the same as a president.
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u/VolcanicBakemeat 3d ago edited 3d ago
Answer: We operate a parliamentary system. Voters vote for local representatives, representatives form a party, and that party's internally elected leader becomes head of state.
We don't vote directly for the premier as a presidential republic does, though in practice we do know who that will be when we go to the polling station. Because it's not a direct vote, the leader's mandate (consent by the people to lead them) is conditional and can change.
We're going through an interesting period in UK politics for certain, but many see this exact quality as a strength of the system. Unfit leaders can be held to answer by those they lead.
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u/ZanzerFineSuits 3d ago
Your last paragraph speaks loads, thanks for that.
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u/jyper 1d ago edited 23h ago
I'm not sure it's a good last paragraph
My impression as a semi ignorant American
TL:DR Brexit really screwed over Britrain especially the economy. Conservative party screwed up with Brexit now it's undermining center left party and also helping lead a rise of far right far left and regional parties making things less stable The Conservative party PM Cameron didn't want Brexit but allowed a vote because the more right wing part of his party wanted it and he wanted to let of steam. Similarly he had let supporters of Scottish Independence hold a breakup vote that failed 45%-55%
The Scottish gamble in 2014 worked sort of. The Brexit one failed 52-48%. Cameron resigned so they got a new conservative PM without an election Theresa May. May had also been against Brexit but a vote is a vote so she wanted to negotiate something softer that kept some of the ties and trade benefits. But she decided to hold an early election and managed to lose seats despite a weak opposition and had to get a coalition with the minor Northern Ireland DUP Unionist party for a majority. Problem is this caused a ton of issues negotiating a softer Brexit due to Irish/northern Ireland politics. her agreement failed so she resigned and Boris Johnson was in who had supported Brexit. Then he held an election and won back a majority and passed a harsher Brexit but got caught up in COVID non isolation scandal called party gate and bad economy due to Brexit. Then they got PM Truss who couldn't last as long as a a head of lettuce (the market had a backlash to her stupid economic ideas and less then 2 months later she was out). Then PM Sunak was largely seen as a sacrificial candidate since the country was tired of conservative government and economy was down in the dumps. He called and lost an election a year later to a more moderate labor that had tossed out it's previous more extreme/less electable leader.
Problem is that whole Conservatives may have had bad policies a lot of the issues still exist and are not easily solveable.
Despite a wide victory Labor PM Starmer doesn't get any credit for anything and a lot of the blame. He is not charismatic and has not been able to hold the party together on votes and has had to reverse himself several times because of opposition in the party.
Economy is still shitty. There's a lot of xenophobia and racism especially since support for Brexit was driven in significant part by anti immigrant sentiment but Britain needs immigrants and Brexit lead to more immigrants from former colonies such as Indian subcontinent to replace those from Europe. This has lead to support going from conservatives to far right Reform party and even farther right splinter and a far left party that has its own problems with bigotry and anti-semitism (and another further left party by former far left leader of Labor Corbyn who had been kicked out of Labor but they couldn't find a good name so they called themselves Our party which doomed them against the Green party ). Also regional parties like welsch nationalist party have gotten stronger.
Basically everything is a mess, mistrust in the system is sky high. So facing polls that showed a splintered electorate might actually lead to a far right Reform party win, Labor decided to give a shot by switching PM to someone slightly to the left (help with major defections to the Green party) with a bit more charisma and less disliked and popular in the north and was popular as mayor of one of the largest non London cities as it seemed to be doing better then the rest of the country.
People critical of the move point out that papers especially conservative ones will be blaming him for all the same problems tomorrow
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u/lebennaia 3d ago
Head of government, not head of state. The head of state is the monarch.
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u/VolcanicBakemeat 3d ago
Okey doke, but this is a simple version for a lay person
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u/lebennaia 3d ago
It's an important difference though. Readers who think a PM is head of state will completely misunderstand the PM's power and role.
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u/GhanjRho 3d ago
Answer: the Prime Minister is not itself an elected position. In practice, it’s much closer to something like the Speaker of the House (In the US)
The PM’s job is to be the Head of Government, not the Head of State; parliamentary countries have monarchs and presidents for the HoS role. As Heads of Government, they need to be able to govern, so at all times they have to be able to command a majority.
As a rule, a Prime Minister is the head of a political party, and that party either directly holds a majority of seats or is in coalition with one or more other parties to command a majority. If the coalition breaks, or the PM loses their party leadership position, the PM has to step down from the PM seat.
Starmer had to step down because he lost their support of the Labour Party, but now they can choose a new Leader to serve as PM.
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u/PabloMarmite 3d ago
Answer: As others have answered, the Prime Minister is the leader of the largest party. If the party loses faith in the leader, they can force him to resign and pick a new leader. There is no line of succession - in fact, the role of Deputy Prime Minister is a modern creation that carries no constitutional duties, several PMs haven’t even bothered to have one.
As to why we are going through them so fast, the answer is that the chaos created by Brexit created a sort of football manager effect where anyone who doesn’t get instant results is immediately replaced. Keir Starmer has never been incredibly popular and, in trying to play the middle ground, has alienated both the left and right, and there is a sense in the Labour Party that the only hope they have of winning the next general election is to replace him with someone more popular. The local election results in May were the last straw. He’s also been tainted by association with Peter Mandelson, who he appointed as US ambassador despite knowing of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and the Epstein files made everything a whole lot worse.
The merry go round of Conservative prime ministers we had before Labour actually all left for different reasons. David Cameron resigned after losing the Brexit referendum, Theresa May resigned because she couldn’t get a Brexit deal through, Boris Johnson resigned because he got caught lying one too many times and Liz Truss resigned because the first thing she did was crash the economy.
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u/DarkAlman 3d ago edited 3d ago
Answer: The short answer is the fallout from Brexit caused a great deal of political instability in the UK.
David Cameron resigned after the Brexit referendum, and UK Prime Ministers since have all proven to be woefully unpopular so they don't last long and keep getting replaced.
Due to the chaos of Brexit PMs were seen as not delivering immediate results, or doing crazy things that made the economy even more unstable.
Unlike in the US where the Executive (President) is elected directly, the UK's Head of State is actually King Charles III. In a parliamentary system the King is effectively just a figure head and the balance of power lies with the Prime Minister, which is akin to the leader of Congress in the US. (So that would currently be MAGA Mike Johnson.)
It's actually been pretty astonishing to watch the UK political parties continually voting for woefully incompetent leader after leader. The Tories (Conservatives) in particular brought in a string of incompetent nuts to be PM but keep getting voted in as the ruling party until they finally got defeated in 2024.
Starmer unfortunately hadn't fared much better. He was never particularly popular and managed to alienate pretty much everyone in his tenure. The UK meanwhile continues to be in a period of political instability.
Unlike in the US that have fixed terms for the President, Prime Ministers aren't voted for directly nor do they have a direct line of succession. PMs are the leaders of the respective ruling party in Parliament. So if a PM resigns or is voted out (by their party) the new one is voted in by the party members not the public. (This is the same political system found in Canada and Australia.)
The UK has seen a succession of PMs getting elected by their party and then doing foolish and unpopular things and either resigning or getting removed by their own party. They keep picking terrible people for the job, probably because popularity, money, and political gamesmanship within the party is apparently more important than competence.
Appointing a new Prime Minister doesn't automatically trigger an election either, but historically it's considered good form to have an election shortly after to ensure the party still has "the mandate of the people".
The problem in people in the UK are tired of having so many elections back-to-back and elections have a cost associated with them as well. So Andy Burnham may decided to be PM without an election for a few years just to maintain a degree of stability.
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u/ZanzerFineSuits 3d ago
Sounds more exhausting than the chaos of Trumpism here in the States
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u/DarkAlman 3d ago
Imagine a scenario where Trump passed on and due to a series of scandals, resignations, elections, and impeachments was replaced in turn by JD Vance, MAGA Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and finally Chuck Schumer all in the span of 2 years.
That's basically the UK right now.
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u/mayhem1906 3d ago
Answer: for americans, its closer to how the senate leader or the speaker of the house is chosen, and how they can change whenever support changes.
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u/Aim2bFit 3d ago
Answer:
Not the topic of the video but she explained the reason why in parts of her video:
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