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.

You’re not the fizziest drink in the fridge are you

Did you live in Huyton at the time? Only the people of Huyton got the chance to vote for Harold Wilson.

You vote for your local representative. Your local representative then has freedom to choose who to support as Prime Minister and the PM is whoever has a majority of support from all the local representatives. The PM has a lot less power than you seem to think. AB can't do anything without the consent and agreement of the majority of MPs. Fortunately for him, the majority of MPs think he is worth following at least for the time being. A general election isn't required, the local representatives were elected to do a job for 5 years and they are doing it.

If we had a directly elected Prime Minister there are times where we would most likely have had a PM of one party and the majority of MPs in another.

Unless he was your MP, you did not vote for Harold Wilson.

These circumstances should mean a bye-election takes place.

Do you think OP will come back?

To be taunted a second time ?

At least he’s a stable presence.

Not really. You vote for the candidate, not the party.

If they change parties after election ....well next time you can vote for someone different.

We cleave far too much to the party system in the UK.

You may be right about those things needing to change, as well as other changes to the electoral system.

But are those conversations we are ready to have as a country given that a large proportion of the country don’t really understand how our political systems work. Neither the Brexit referendum nor the one on AV have been a shining example of how to run a referendum and I’d argue we are in an even worse position with people playing political games now.

He was the MP for Ormskirk before Huyton.

We vote for the party not for the prime minister
John Major
Gordon Brown
Teresa may
Liz Truss
Rishi Sunak
Were all prime ministers

I despair at the level of ignorance a vast number of British people have when it comes to how the voting system works in the UK. Usually those people call themselves "patriots" as well.

And to be called ‘not the fizziest drink in the fridge’ again. Horrible.

Exactly. It is a simple question. If you were voting in the 1960s and 1970s, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that you would have a basic understanding of the democratic process. I have never lived in a constituency whose MP was or became Prime Minister, so I can say with certainty that I have never voted for a Prime Minister, and I've been voting since 1979.

Well he’s saving me a fortune on school meals so I love him.

He was, but he wasn't party leader at the time so no one in Ormskirk voted for him to be Prime Minister.

Totally agree with you.

Really; not the sharpest tool in the box would have been kinder.

I've never voted for a PM in my life

If you were voting in the 1960s and 1970s, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that you would have a basic understanding of the democratic process.

Reasonable maybe. But not a certainty.

That’s not how it works love

In answer to your question @AgentKim. Yes. This has happened many times

Trying to understand why the OP doesn’t know how the system works would have been kinder. But this thread doesn’t seem to care about people with fewer qualifications, people with lower socio-economic backgrounds, people who were born overseas and people from ethnic minority groups.

Op but makersfield voted for him !!
Makersdield !!

Forgetting that they were utterly dubbed in the national elections !
Makersfield voted for Burnham !