Rishi Sunak resigns as Conservative leader following Labour's election victory

[xdecadentx]

BREAKING: Rishi Sunak resigns as Conservative Party leader after Labour landslidehttps://t.co/vMek534sFQ
- Sky News (@SkyNews) July 5, 2024
- He apologised and said "I have heard your anger, your disappointment and I take responsibility for this loss

Comments

[just444]

i like how fast this all goes in the UK, election was yesterday and the new guy is already appointed

[escalena]

wait, he is? like the current person doesn't finish their term? they're gone immediately?

[xdecadentx]

Yep, the previous guy goes to the King and resigns, then the new guy goes in and the King asks them if they're ready to form a government and if they agree, they're the new PM.

[escalena]

ty lol I just realized, I've watched The Crown in its entirety, I had no business forgetting this LMAO

[deerlike]

It's like this in Denmark as well, or maybe it's generally like this for any constitutional parliamentary monarchy?

[nichtsmuss]

That's a general feature of Westminster parliamentary systems, really. Elections are, in theory, set for a certain date at the end of a term, but can be called earlier. If the party in power loses, new PM and cabinet, etc.

[sashwizzled]

We don't really have terms in the same way - when the election gets called, that parliament is dissolved, it no longer exists. MPs are only allowed back into Westminster to get their stuff.

And then after the election, the new parliament is formed. A parliament can only run for five years, but usually it's less than that because the PM will call the election at the best time for their party. Or in this case, the weirdest time.

Even if Sunak had won, he'd have still had to go to Chuck and ask permission to form a new parliament.

...This is what having no codified constitution gets you. Nonsense.

[escalena]

so what you're saying if i understand correctly is, you don't have elections every 4 years on the dot of the day the 4 years are up, like clockwork?

[sashwizzled]

The last election was December 2019, before that 2017, before that 2014.... 2019 was literally just because the Tories were popular at the time and thought (correctly) they would boost their numbers. tbh it would be nice to have it at the same time, at least we'd all have time to brace ourselves, rather than Sunak deciding he's bored of this pleb nonsense and calling it six months early.

[insomniachobs]

Nope. The government can call an election whenever they like - there is a maximum (5 years), and if they don't do it by that point it occurs automatically by function of statute, but we can have elections any old time

[escalena]

Oh wow

I'm learning!!!!

[expectingmore]

Yeah, it's like that in a LOT of countries... The US is more the exception than the rule.

[escalena]

Argentina is the same. I thought it was the standard lol like the 4 year anniversary of the thing is when the thing is done again

The thing: democracy

[the4thjuliek]

It's pretty common in many British-style Parliamentary systems. Doesn't take more than two days for everything to sort out.

[tigermilk]

Right? It's kind of wild. We have a few months of lame-duck presidency before the next person takes over.