If only leaders could step down before the inevitable loss for the good of their voters and their party… Cough Biden… Cough Trudeau… Cough
UK doesn’t work like you think it does. The PM is not a publicly elected position like in the USA.
You vote for the party. The winning party tells you who, of their elected members, will have that role. The party can replace the PM on a vote.
it’s like the speaker of the house in the USA. Remember all the voting and stuff the Republicans did earlier? Similar.
Yeah I’m Canadian, our system works fairly similarly. We vote liberal or conservative, but the leader can be different depending on the party vote.
Our Trudeau could still decide to not run for PM next election though if he decided not to run.
Your party can’t tell you to lead the party if you weren’t voted in as part of that party since you didn’t run at all.
This is exactly right - the exact same “Let’s burn down the system sell off the system to the highest briber bidder” sentiment that’s been ruling the Republicans has been eating away at the Tories as well. Now, every time leadership fails to make changes, they toss them out and put someone more extreme in their place (until you hit a Liz Truss)
I feel like the UK is lagging behind and we will see a rubber banding effect. After a decade of cons we will see a weak centrist labour party that will try to right the wrongs of the previous government while also taking all the blame for it. Then come next election cycle, because they were too pussyfoot to change FPTP, a stronger than ever right wing party will undo anything.
The FPTP system in the UK is what makes this incredibly likely. Yes labour won huge with their Tory lite platform, but turnout was shit and their huge majority win isn’t even 35 percent of the people who even bothered voting. That’s a very fragile landslide and it will turn around when these milquetoast liberals fail to change anything (because they don’t want to change anything).
Labour got less votes than 2019. What a landslide! I’m not sure their Tory lite platform did them any favours. They were just Not The Tories and reform split the Tory vote because they were also Not The Tories and promised that everything would be perfect if we just hate immigrants a bit more
Yeah, FPTP is a shitty system and needs to be changed. But it’s disconcerting to consider how many hard right Reform MPs we’d have now if we had proportional representation.
To be sure, but with actual labour supporters looking at that and thinking “it’s because Tories didn’t actually keep their promises to stop immigration” and “let’s opress trans people too” I honestly don’t think the resulting government with a few more in opposition would’ve been worse than something where an actual left party might’ve succeeded. You know, one that provides a revolutionary vision of hope.
“I do think people need hope, but it needs to be what I call ordinary hope, realistic hope,” Starmer said.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/britain-keir-starmer-corbyn-election-serious
This government is doomed.
Don’t you think he looks tired?
Depressing that the UK clearly still wants a conservative government, they’ve just, after 14 years, finally realized the Tories are incompetent perverts.
As an American who is absolutely horrified and embarrassed about our own political climate and voter behavior, it’s very good to see a sane and dull transfer of power.
Sunak’s speech after stepping down:
Whilst he has been my political opponent, Keir Starmer, will shortly become our prime minister. In this job, his successes will be all our successes, and I wish him and his family well. Whatever our disagreements in this campaign, He is a decent, public spirited man who I respect.
He and his family deserve the very best of our understanding as they make the huge transition to their new lives behind this door. And as he grapples with this most demanding of jobs in an increasingly unstable world.
He didn’t have to do this. It has nothing to do with the transfer of power. Just tradition to run away when you lose but you’re 100% allowed to stay party leader
Not in UK’s Conservative Party. They don’t mess around, if the leader doesn’t deliver, they’re out, no questions asked.
And, like with the US, you now have progressives inheriting a house that conserves shat in for over a decade. Austerity, Brexit, etc.
I’m curious to see how good Britain’s long term memory is. America forgets about the dangers of conservatism all too quickly.
