While we are looking forward to the first Democratic Debates later this month, the “official” start of the 2020 nomination process — which will not end until 13 months later at the Democratic National Convention — the United Kingdom is looking at a rather different process for choosing its next prime minister. Technically, the United Kingdom does not have elections for prime minister. Instead, the United Kingdom (and most western democracies) have elections for party leadership. The prime minister is technically chosen by the Queen (or, in many other commonwealth countries, by the Governor-General — the official representative of the Queen for that country — or in other monarchies by that country’s king or queen or republics, like Germany, Israel, Greece, and Italy, by the president). However, the tradition is that the leader of the majority party is selected as prime minister or — if no party individually has a majority — the person chosen as prime minister by the coalition that has a majority or — if no party or coalition has a majority — by the leader of the largest grouping in the legislature.
Those elections for party leadership can occur at any time. Often, an election will occur shortly after a general election with the losing parties looking for new leadership for the next election. However, in the middle of parliament, even the winning party can look at the tea leaves for the next election and decide that the best strategy for winning the next election is to kick out the person who seems to be leading the party to sure defeat.
One of the things that makes the United Kingdom (or Canada or Australia) interesting is that in a paraphrase of the old saw, we are two countries united by a shared but diverging history. At the time of the American Revolution, the United Kingdom was in the middle of a long evolution from a strong monarchy with a parliamentary check in the 1500s to the supremacy of the House of Commons by 1850. And, in the 1770, there were flaws in the selection and composition of the House of Commons. Coming from that shared point, the United States and the commonwealth countries have taken entirely different approaches to selecting a party leader.
For the most part, until recently, the United Kingdom used the same process for choosing a party leader that the United States use to choose the leaders of the legislative caucuses. However, because prime minister has more powers than the leader of a legislative caucus, in recent years, the parties have tended toward a more open process that allows the participation of party members. However, unlike the U.S. , such participation is not open to all registered voters. Instead, to participate, you have to be a dues-paying member of the party.
Currently, the United Kingdom has two vacant leadership posts. As in the United States, the rules for these contests are established by the political parties rather than any legal mandates. And each of the parties has slightly different processes.
The less significant of the two contests is the leadership contest for the Liberal Democrats (currently with 11 seats in the House of Commons). This contest has been coming for some time with the current leader having announced several months ago that he would be standing down at the end of July to allow the party to choose the person who will lead it into the next general election. The rules for this election required candidates to be nominated by at least two members of parliament and 200 paid members of the party (from at least 20 local parties). Only two candidates have emerged for that contest which will now go to a postal vote by paid members of the party.
The more significant contest is the leadership contest for the Conservatives (currently with 313 seats in Parliament, just short of a majority). The rules for the Conservatives differ significantly from the rules for the Liberal Democrats. More significantly, the rules have been changed in the last several weeks — since the Prime Minister first announced her plan to resign — in response to the initial burst of candidates intending to run. First, the nomination process only requires the support of members of Parliament. The original rules required the support of two members of Parliament. It now requires the support of eight members. But the more important difference is what happens once all of the candidates have come forward.
Unlike the Liberal Democrats who immediately proceed to a vote of the paid members, the Conservative Party allows the parliamentary members to narrow the field down to two candidates. It is only the final two who proceed to the vote of the paid members. Again, since Theresa May’s resignation announcement, the parliamentary party has changed the rules for the contest after thirteen candidates entered the race. (Two immediately withdrew after the rules change.) The candidates have until 5:00 BST on June 10 to file their nomination papers (showing the support of the eight members of parliament). Assuming that there are more than two candidates, the candidates will proceed to rounds of vote by the parliamentary party. After the first round, the candidate with the least votes (and any other candidate with fewer than 17 votes) will be eliminated. After the second round, the candidate with the least votes (and any other candidate with fewer than 33 votes) will be eliminated. Assuming that eleven candidates file to run, it is mathematically possible that only one candidate will be eliminated in each round. Unless these two rounds narrow the field to two candidates, there will be further rounds — with one candidate eliminate per round — until the field is narrowed to two. At this point four rounds have been scheduled over the next two weeks, but additional rounds could be scheduled. The plan calls for the field to be narrowed to two candidates by June 22.
Like in the U.S., the two surviving candidates will have some public debates and the opportunity to speak to local conservative organizations in their campaign to win the election. But, in the end, the decision between the final two candidates will be made by the approximately 124,000 paid members of the Conservative Party.
The plan is for the Conservative Party election to be concluded by July 22. At that point, the winner will probably be named as Prime Minister by the Queen. The election is supposed to conclude just before the summer recess for Parliament. Of course, that recess date could still change. Whether in July or when Parliament returns in early October, there is likely to be a no-confidence vote in the new Prime Minister. As the Conservative Party does not have a majority, Ms. May had depended on a “confidence and supply” agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party. Until we know who gets the nod from the Conservative Party, it is impossible to predict if the DUP will continue to support the new Prime Minister. Additionally, part of what brought down Ms. May was internal divisions in the Conservative Party over Brexit (which currently is scheduled for the end of October). It is entirely possible, depending upon who gets chosen as the new Leader, that some Conservative members of parliament may leave the party and cross over to the opposition benches. (Unlike in the U.S. where legislative chambers tend to be a semi-circle, the chambers of parliament are divided into two sides with the governing party sitting to one side and the opposition sitting on the other side. So changing parties actually requires crossing over to the other side. Additionally, because voting is done by members dividing into two voting lobbies — with the aye lobby being on the government side and the nay lobby being on the opposition side — defecting on a vote also requires crossing the aisle.)
Which ultimately leads to the big division between the United States and parliamentary democracies. In the United States, barring the very unusual circumstance of multiple deaths and resignations, voters know at the time of the presidential election who might become president if the president dies or has to resign. In parliamentary democracies, any member of the majority party could become prime minister in the middle of the term. And there is no guarantee that the resignation of the current prime minister as leader of her party means that there will be a general election to confirm the new prime minister other than the next regular general election. Three of the last four parliaments in the United Kingdom, and the last four parliaments in Australia have seen the prime minister forced to resign by his own party during the middle of the term.
Besides the chance to see how other democracies handle this tricky task of choosing a leader, there are some serious consequences of this vote. The candidates range from the very Trumpian Boris Johnson who would likely try to force through a “no deal” Brexit — British and global economy be damned — to some who would be willing to delay Brexit and hold a new referendum if that was the only way to get a deal approved. Who wins will indicate whether the uber-nationalism of Trump is spreading to the mainstream parties in Europe or the mainstream parties will continue to defend some type of community of western democracies.
