Can a new prime minister take office without a general election?

[AgentKim]

Erm shouldn't we have a general election to vote in a new prime minister as no one voted for Andy Burnham to be in charge.
How is that allowed.
Im sure people voted for Labour because they wanted Kier Starmer to be prime minister. Where did Andy Burnham come from all of sudden.
Can anyone in the government in power be prime minister without a general election.

If you've been voting that long you should remember John Major taking over from Margaret Thatcher, Gordon Brown from Tony Blair, and goodness knows how many since. Going back further, Churchill didn't trigger an election when he took over from Chamberlain.

Even in the US presidential system successors serve out the remainder of the presidential term rather than trigger an election (Kennedy-Johnson, Nixon-Ford etc).

Did you sleep all those years that the conservatives were in power?

Gordon Bennett, how many more times?

We do not vote for the Prime Minister in this country. It is not like a presidential election. We vote for the party. The leader of the winning party becomes Prime Minister. Should that person leave (for whatever reason) during the party's term in office, the party chooses a new leader, who then becomes Prime Minister.

It is very simple to understand.

You've been voting since the days of Harold Wilson and you still don't know how our parliamentary democracy works?

If you voted for Labour when Wilson was the leader then you are at least 70. How can you have been voting that long without understanding how it works?

Did you live in his constituency? You vote for your MP not the PM. For a few people their MP will be party leader but most people aren’t voting for PM. Even if they are they can stand down as leader of the party and still remain as MP.

I genuinely can't beleive that people know so little about our political system. How do you get to be in your 70s without understanding what you are voting for? It is mind boggling.

Some people on here are really not switched on to the reality of the level of political education in this country. Through my work I know many people in their 70s and 80s who literally do not even know how to vote (well they do now that I work with them) but they didn’t beforehand. There is so much assumption on this thread and it’s spilling over into classist behaviour too.

They are not snide replies.

Unless you were living in either Ormskirk or Huyton constituencies during those elections when Labour won and Harold Wilson was your constituency candidate, you cannot have voted for him at all. Even if you were able to vote for him as your constituency MP, you were not voting for him to become Prime Minister.

Because you’ve always lived in poverty
Because you cannot read or write
Because you left school at 15/16
Because you grew up with no knowledge of politics or how it mattered to you
Because you have been disenfranchised through a million other reasons…

Kind of ironic that people on here espousing to be clever about politics don’t know so much about the state of the UK - I guess you must all think people don’t vote because they can’t be arsed and there are no other barriers? Maybe think about your own ignorance before you go after that of other people…

No they don’t in reality. The party votes for their leader. If that party wins the election they can change the leader.
But it is a fair point. Should there be an election if a party chooses and decides the leader they not long ago were all behind is suddenly not wanted anymore by them ?

A bit like if someone jumps to join another party. They do not have to have an election. I think they absolutely should.

And also the issue of how parties choose their leader, it’s not the same for all parties, so that’s a whole other minefield.

If you have genuinely had the right to vote through all of those years, is there a reason why you never bothered to learn how our system of government works? And is there a reason why you didn't ask the same question about the many other PMs who have come to power without general elections during that time? I can't understand how this would only be news to you now?

An awful lot of people say they don’t know much about politics but if you ask them do you know about life and money they will say ‘yes’. They do not equate the two.

Growing up sadly, there was a fashion for some women to say they were not interested in politics lest it made them seem a bit less feminine in some way. Or intelligent even. And didn’t need to know about anything ‘boring’.

Yeah, the Tories had about 10 different Prime Ministers in a row who hadn't been voted in, haha. We can't have a general election every 6 months!

Indeed, you’re right on both counts. But I was making the point that some people find politics as a concept completely inaccessible due to circumstances of their upbringing and we have yet to change that through the conventional educational system or public information efforts.

Politics needs to be taught more broadly. So many people simply don’t understand how it works. Same as basic financial advice. I think part of the reason why we are in the state we are is because so many don’t understand the basics of how things work. It’s not right, really.

I think that the subject of PPE should be taught in schools as a core subject.

But politics, philosophy and economics would be so valuable. Obviously at an age-appropriate level. I seriously doubt brexit would have happened if the majority of the population had a fundamental level of politics, economics and critical thinking.

We live in Scandinavia and civics is taught through junior and senior school. It is just taken for granted here that people know how democracy works.

I disagree with this- i don’t think there there is a decline in political understanding- I do take @Arlanymor s point about opportunity but at the same time I doubt my grandmother born in 1925 would’ve known about voting off the top of her head (she would’ve known how to research though)

but I think it’s astonishing that people don’t realise this in 2026 because we’ve had about 5 “unelected” party leaders as prime ministers in the last 10 years. It’s been a huge topic of discussion

But a huge topic of discussion among who… lots of people don’t or can’t watch the news or cannot understand it if they do. In your circles you talk sure, so do I, but not everyone, not by a long chalk. There is top level chat about headlines but that doesn’t equate to understanding - or even voting turnout. There is absolutely a decline in political understanding. Civic literacy is worse than in the past when people spoke about stuff around the dinner table. Complexities in the political establishment add to this. There are so many people on this thread who think “Well I know this, so everyone else should…” Not the reality at all. Not by a long chalk.

If someone is capable of posting on social media then they are capable of googling the answer to questions like this. It's way easier now to get information than it was just 10 years ago, for most people it's literally in the palm of their hands. Barring SEN or illiteracy if you want to know, educate yourself

I am not saying that political understand has declined necessarily, however I think people without an understanding are more susceptible to fall for lies they see online. Previously, of course, there were lies and propaganda, but social media means it can be shared more easily. It is, possibly only marginally, easier now to peddle falsehoods, in my opinion.

ETA - rereading that I think I am saying that political understanding has declined.

If those circuses weren’t exposed to political understanding they wouldn’t have discussed it round the dinner table either though?

I do think people were more politically aware when we had an active union movement and certainly, when we were more insular (or- less “globalised”) but whether most people genuinely knew more than now - i’d challenge that tbh.

I saw the title of this and these are the exact words I said!😂

To be fair to the OP. they didn't say they voted for Harold Wilson in a parliamentary election. It could have been in a poll for Womens Realm, or similar.