Another Angry Woman
So, you're not UK based and want some context for all the toots going on behind content warnings? Let me try to explain.
The current prime minister of the UK is rishi sunak. He is a tory, and is awful. It is likely that he will lose badly. His opponent, and our almost-definite prime minister is keir starmer, of labour, who is marginally less awful (measured in nano-units)
Another Angry Woman
To clarify and remove all doubt: the king can basically refuse to rubber stamp any prime minister or bill, even if parliament voted it through. He could in theory pick any prime minister he wants. Likewise, the house of lords can veto anything they want. They just don't, because of the threat of beheading.
Another Angry Woman
tl;dr: stupid country
Another Angry Woman
And finally, at any point an MP can stop being an MP. They can resign, die or be recalled if they really suck. This triggers a by-election, and the constituency votes in a new MP.
And a general election can functionally be called at any time if sufficient MPs vote for it. We don't really have set terms, there just has to be a general election five years after the last one, but can have one before that.
Another Angry Woman
Anyway, so we have a ton of people - many of them former MPs - who now have lifetime seats in the house of lords which means they can sit on parliamentary committees, amend bills, fully block bills and be ministers (possibly even prime minister, I legit can't remember this).
This is perfectly normal here.
Another Angry Woman
One final point, when watching the northern Ireland results, is that the republican party, sinn fein, do not take their seats, because they refuse to swear fealty and kneel to the monarch. NI voters know this, and it's a political choice to vote for them. They always technically gain some seats, which means functionally there are always *fewer* than 650 MPs in the house of commons.
Another Angry Woman
Another arcane point. So the UK actually has two houses: commons (elected) and lords (appointed/hereditary). There are unlimited seats in the house of lords, I wanna guess at about 1000 in the currently. A small proportion are there because they're important dukes or bishops. Most of them are appointed by whoever current PM was at the time. The PM sends a list of ppl they want to be lord to the monarch, and they go yeah sure. They are a lord for life
Another Angry Woman
But because we have the system we do, entirely based on simple majorities of votes, sometimes tactical voting matters. For example, if you live in an area where the tories usually get in but the lib dems come second, voting lib dem means one less tory mp. Whoever gets the most votes, even if it's by 1, becomes the mp. And in parliament, if a bill gets most votes, even if only by 1, the bill passes (I'm simplifying a bit here)
Another Angry Woman
Anyway, basically, absolutely nobody in the UK is actually voting for a prime minister. We are voting for the person who then goes off to the house of commons and chooses the prime minister, then their vote advises the king, who goes with whatever they say rather than risk getting beheaded (happened once)
Another Angry Woman
Functionally, by being the two biggest parties, either labour or the tories will usually get a majority of seats in the house of commons. Sometimes it doesn't happen like that, and nobody has a majority. This happened in 2010, which resolved by the tories forming a coalition government with the lib dems. Their guy was PM, the lib dems got a seat at the table, and it was awful. Sometimes they make simpler deals with other parties.
Another Angry Woman
Having a simple majority of seats in the house of commons means that you won. All the new MPs vote for the prime minister, who forms a government. With a majority of a party, the MPs from that party vote for their choice of prime minister, who is the leader of their party. I am about 99% certain that to qualify to be PM, you have be a member of the house of commons, too, but 1% of me says maybe they can also be a lord (more on this later)
Another Angry Woman
Anyway, the winning party vote for the PM to be PM, then the king, who actually has absolute decision rights here, rubber stamps the decision and that guy becomes PM.
So in short, the leader of the party who gains most seats pretty much always becomes prime minister. In this election, labour will likely get 360+ seats, so they'll win and mr wet wipe becomes prime minister, uncomplicatedly
Another Angry Woman
This election is a general election: electing representatives for the 650 seats in Westminster. These seats are small, partitioned-up constituencies of the entire country (all 4 countries) who each elect one member of parliament to the house of commons.
Any party can stand in any constituency, and the person who gets most votes gets the seat, by simple majority.
Another Angry Woman
Yes, the UK consists of countries! Four to be precise. England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. The latter three also have their own governments and elections. England, having most of the power and population doesn't, but also pretty much controls the entirety of parliament, who basically make pretty much all of our laws. They govern from Westminster.
Another Angry Woman
The UK is not a country where you actually, technically, vote for your prime minister. And we don't have two main parties, we have loads of them. There's labour and the tories (officially known as conservatives), but also tons of other parties like the lib dems (bad), reform (fucking fascists), workers party (less good than it sounds greens (all right, sometimes), and some country-specific parties like the snp, plaid cymru, sinn fein and the dup
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