[MarcScott]

Very briefly:

Farage received a "gift" of £5M. He didn't tell parliament about the gift, which breaks the rules. MPs or campaigning MPs need to declare gifts and donations, as there are strict rules on who you can receive money from. The media found out about the "gift", and Farage was going to be investigated. He resigned as MP for Clacton, which stops the investigation and triggers an election. I think his plan was for him to win again, and then be able to turn around and say "the people have decided, they don't care about gifts I get." However, all the other parties refused to stand candidates in the upcoming election. If Farage wins, then the investigation will start again. However, we have numerous comedic parties that will run in elections in the UK. Count Binface will challenge Farage. Farage won with something like 46% of the vote last time. With the negative coverage he's been receiving, and the option of sticking it to reform by voting for Count Binface, the people of Clacton might end up delivering a very embarrassing defeat for Farage. This is the country that voted to name a research vessel Boaty McBoatFace.

[stavros]

Thank you for the explanation, so this is basically for the election as MP. Does this mean that Farage's party also can't win in the next general election (and make him PM)? AFAIK him becoming PM was a worry.

[hdgvhicv]

To be prime minister you have to have support of 50%+1 of the MPs. This means either having them in your party, or having a deal with another party.

You also have to be an MP.

Currently Kier Starmer is a Labour mp in an area of London. He’s resigning and is being replaced by someone (Burnham) who was Labour Mayor for Manchester, but stood as MP in an area of Manchester last month after another Labour MP resigned.

Burnham beat reform in that election, and Count Binface. There was a discussion thy given how unpopular Labour is, that reform might win. In the end everyone who was anti reform (Farage’s party) voted Burnham and he got 55% of the vote.

While the sentiment in the U.K. is that if a general election were held tomorrow, Farage would win his seat, and reform would win a large number of votes. In reality polling puts Farage’s party around 25%, with four other parties on 10-20%. As the election isn’t proportional though it’s possible reform could get 55% of the seats with 25% of the vote, however last time they got 1% of the seats with 12% of the votes.

[onion2k]

You also have to be an MP.

I don't think that's strictly true. You definitely don't have to be an MP in order to hold a cabinet office. I think that extends to the PM as well. It's never been tried obviously.

[swiftcoder]

It's not strictly law, but at this point it might as well be. The last PM to be appointed without being an MP was Sir Alec Douglas-Home in the 1960s, and he immediately resigned his peerage and won a by-election to remedy that...

[pasc1878]

It has been tried but long ago.

The last member of the House of Lords to be PM was Lord Salisbury in 1900.

As noted Alec Douglas-Hume had to leave the House of Lords in 1963 and get elected as a MP.

The previous attempt would have been Lord Halifax in 1940 but by then it was clear the PM had to be from the Commons.

[stavros]

That's very informative, thanks!

[inejge]

Any party can win if it gets the majority of candidates across all parliamentary constituencies. However, a Prime Minister must be elected as an MP somewhere. If Reform got a majority without Farage being elected, they would be in a strange situation where the leader of the party couldn't become the PM. It's amusing to think about, in a schadenfreudish way, but the chances of that are slim. He would certainly stand in a general election for the same seat, other major parties would contest it, and it seems that Clacton-on-Sea supports him over the others. This by-election is special because the major parties are boycotting it for being a self-serving stunt that it is.

[gadders]

I imagine they would do what Labour have had to do with Andy Burnham, and get some no-name MP in a safe seat to resign in exchange for a promise to get in the House of Lords later or some other reward.

[pjc50]

> Does this mean that Farage's party also can't win in the next general election (and make him PM)?

Firstly, that election is three years away; it's a separate political event.

Secondly, that depends on the outcome of at least three hundred constituency elections, which would have to return Reform candidates. They did OK for a minor party at the last council elections, but they have a very high attrition rate as candidates are discovered to be above the acceptable racism threshold, bent, mad, or simply never intended to do the job in the first place.

[calcifer]

There are very few ways of becoming PM without also being an MP. The PM must be able to sit in the parliament, so he must either be an MP or a member of the Lords. In theory, the current PM or even the King could make him a Peer, and therefore a member of the Lords, but neither is likely :)

[hdgvhicv]

The last time a PM wasn’t in the commons properly was 1902, although technically Douglas Holme became PM before getting a seat, however Parliament didn’t resume until after he became an MP

A Lord can’t address the commons, which was most recently an issue when ex PM David Cameron was made foreign secretary in the dying days of the last Tory governemt.

[dmurray]

Farage can't realistically be PM in the current parliamentary session anyway. His party needs to win, or do very well in, the next general election instead. At a national level this election is purely symbolic and dictates whether Reform will have 7 or 8 seats out of the 650.

I suppose that in theory if Reform could form a government after the next election, but Farage still didn't get a seat, a party colleague could become PM and appoint him as a peer. There's a rich history of politicians losing elections and getting appointed this way instead, though as far as I know none of them subsequently became PM.

[DamonHD]

Do you mean "must be able to sit in Parliament"? The Lords and Commons are the two distinct chambers.

There have been non-MP (ie non-Commons) PMs.

[calcifer]

Sorry yes, I meant the parliament.

[gpderetta]

> This is the country that voted to name a research vessel Boaty McBoatFace

And "Killing in the Name" as Christmas song of '09, to spite the usual X-factor shoo-in.

There is a chance that more entertainment is yet to come from Clacton.