Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by DanielBMarkham 3645 days ago
So he resigns, but he was elected as a representative in the lower house. That means he won't be PM anymore, and he goes back to being a member of the lower house? Does the house pick one of its own members for the job, or does the majority party get to pick anybody at all that they want to be PM?

Do PMs that leave go back to being house members? Seems like that would be kinda weird.
3 comments
lmm 3645 days ago
> So he resigns, but he was elected as a representative in the lower house. That means he won't be PM anymore, and he goes back to being a member of the lower house?

Yes.

> Does the house pick one of its own members for the job, or does the majority party get to pick anybody at all that they want to be PM?

Officially they can pick a member of either house of parliament. In practice picking a Lord would be extremely controversial and probably lead to some rapid constitutional reform.

> Do PMs that leave go back to being house members? Seems like that would be kinda weird.

They usually won't stand in the next election, and go off and do something else - either private business or charity, or one of the less direct parts of government (the house of lords, embassies or the like - traditionally Europe was another destination but I guess no longer). In theory they could stay on and work as foreign secretary or whatever for the person who replaced them (or return to the back benches) but yeah that would be weird.

link
thomasfoster96 3645 days ago
> So he resigns, but he was elected as a representative in the lower house. That means he won't be PM anymore, and he goes back to being a member of the lower house?

Yep.

> Does the house pick one of its own members for the job, or does the majority party get to pick anybody at all that they want to be PM?

In most countries (the UK included) the majority party will pick one of their MPs. Australia once had a PM die in office (Harold Holt) and have a person in the Senate picked as the replacement, so the replacement ran in the byelection for the previous PM's seat.

> Do PMs that leave go back to being house members? Seems like that would be kinda weird.

Yeah, but they've also been house members the whole time they were PM, so it's not that wierd.

link
rwmj 3645 days ago
Yes they just become ordinary backbench MPs, although most usually then leave after the following election.
link