U.K. Voters’ Frustration High as 99% Are Sidelined in Prime Minister Election

It is absolutely imperative that the British people have the final say over perhaps the most consequential decision to face their nation in centuries. Especially given how flawed we now know the first "vote" was, a referendum to confirm or correct the idea of Brexit is absolutely warranted.

"Several Conservative ministers have begun quitting in protest of Mr. Johnson’s policies." As the old folks used to say: "Bad money drives out the good."

@sdcga161 Two comments: First, Jim Comey and Hillary Clinton got us Trump, and 90% of the so-called scoop on Trump was bought and paid for by the DNC. It didn’t work out so well, and she went backward in all the states that Obama had just won. That takes real skill. Second, we got it. Liberals look down their noses at rural citizens, calling them irredeemable. Now, I am only middle aged, but that is a term of contempt. Contempt in any use is easily called “hate speech”, a term Liberals wield like a light saber. I have a Liberal friend who once commented on the “unattractive people” in the audience at a concert we attended one evening last year. I am constantly amazed by how seemingly nice suburban and city-dwelling people reveal their deep animus (evil, really) toward other people whom they feel are not educated or like them (except when those people are waiting at our border or living in the slums we perpetuate with our well-intended social justice policies...those are potential voters). I have been to Nebraska. Twice. They have Starbucks and some of the most decent, clear-thinking people you will meet. Read some of Ben Sasse’s work. And try to live the loving mantra of a Liberal. We certainly accomplished great things when taking down the remnants of slavery, and that for a minority. It was done in the Congress, where it should have been. And it passed by greater Republican margins than Democratic. I am constantly surprised by people, of all kinds.

Democracy is failing the governed everywhere. When ideologues and the wealthy hold sway, the rest of us lose. There is an answer, but it requires the populace to be informed and actively involved...including real protest in the street. If 99% are dissatisfied in Britain, they should be in the street. Likewise, there should be 10s of millions in the streets here...where are they? Sitting on our hands is not a strategy to fix anything.

Time will tell. Evolution or revolution?

That’s a lot more than the number of people who could cast a vote for the election of the new EU top brass

If they think their situation's bad, remind them of our Electoral College, where the loser can -- and has, twice in the last five elections -- win and where a voter in rural Nebraska has far more clout that one in Los Angeles. I am a strong believer in democracy, but when it gives you a Donald Trump and likely a Boris Johnson in just under three years, it certainly gives you pause.

Yes yes, in America you choose your leader. We know. The British, Canadians, here in Australia, many nations, we don't. Frankly, we get it right. Far more intelligent to have a representative of the majority party leading the country. Even other republics have a president AND a prime minister, for a reason - The PM does the work, the president is only a figurehead. You would do well to take the power away from your president and put someone in who represents the majority and gets the work done.

Well, in 2000, we had our president chosen by 5 right-wing members of the Supreme Court.

In 2016, three million more votes went to one candidate but the electoral system derailed actual, true democracy. One man. One vote? Not so much.

Since schools obviously no longer teach the particulars of governing and encourage only righteous outrage, here it is: 'Parliamentary system, democratic form of government in which the party (or a coalition of parties) with the greatest representation in the parliament (legislature) forms the government, its leader becoming prime minister or chancellor.' The Conservatives have the greatest representation so, as they first chose Theresa May and David Cameron before, so to will those representatives choose the next Prime Minister. Just as Labour would and has in the past. The is the system that has been in place for over 300 years and has worked well.

It's astonishingly contemptuous. We were told we must leave the EU because it's 'undemocratic', that a wafer thin majority (3%) in an advisory referendum riddled with irregularities, electoral fraud and signs of foreign manipulation is 'the will of the people - and yet the very same people lecturing the British people on 'democracy' are those selecting Boris Johnson to be Prime Minister. Here's a man who's made a career out of peddling smears, distortions and frank lies about the European Union to the UK's Right-wing media, a man who promised that Leaving would provide an extra $500 million per week to the National Health Service (it won't), who is steering a 'Do or Die' hard Brexit strategy, who believes that all Brexit's intractable problems - the Irish border 'Backstop', the loss of 44 years worth of privileged trade dealings and so on, can be solved by 'having faith', a man who is unfit to lead, is being chosen by 0.3% of the British electorate. I'm 65 years old. I never imagined I'd see my own country in the midst of a sinister Right-wing coup. That's what it is..

We would do well to watch this. In Hong Kong, now in England, and soon to be the United States, Big Government is trying to shove down the throats of its people the direction they want to go. Nevermind that the direction is diametrically opposed to what the people want. This is happening in places where some of the people still remember when we, the people, actually made those decisions.

Well, we Americans can look at the brighter picture. As in - unlike in the past - Brits will not lecture us that we made a mistake some 250 years ago. I worked and lived in the UK. My impression is most Brits could care less about politics - or governance. In Britain, politics is defined by politicians and their personalities. Watch BBC in UK - and especially the news - it's all about what one politician called another politician names. They will dissect it for ever with talking heads - no policy debates. A country with one sixth the population of ours - it has 3 times number of representatives in Westminster between the Commons and the House of Lords. With such over representation - political talk is reduced to meaningless demands of a very small population. Enter the fix hunting debate. Brits championed this democracy and they need to live with it. As to Brexit - regardless of new prime minister - the parliamentary deadlock will continue because of sheer number of partisans in the House of Commons.

This article would be more useful if it compared the Westminster governance model to the American, and explained the incompatibility of referenda with the Westminster Parliamentary governance model. Americans are unaware of the fact that the American governance model is the most transparent and democratic model in the world. While it is also the most corrupt in the world that is only because American prosperity is by far the greatest in the world. While there is outrageous corruption it is generally carried in full view of the voters unlike any other system such as those of all of the European countries where corruption is rarely exposed and punished. Having said that, Americans still never ask how it is that most of their Congessmen, all their Senators and all Presidents in the modern age leave public service vastly richer than when they entered. Ironically, Donald Trump will likely be the only President in memory who leaves the White House poorer than when he entered.

It seems that every election system has a thumb on the scale. Is there actually a free and fair election anywhere? I'm seriously asking...

Direct election of the executive is bad. People should be responsible for their vote by binding it to the legislators they vote for. Otherwise, they will vote in contradictory ways causing government's gears to grind and finally- in the end- bind altogether, leaving people frustrated enough to call for an undemocratic figure to make the trains run.

There are many things wrong with our political system, but when I hear that 160,000 people (and all from one political party) in GB will decide the fate of the nation, I am very, very grateful to the men who created this system of government back in 1789

This statement by @Michael out of Bloomington says much "very few people want Mr Corbyn as Prime Minister." Sadly, that seems to be the only consensus one can make of it all. I don't remember previous Labour leaders having such widespread animus across the party lines. Perhaps Labour should look no farther than at its own house to understand the backlash against it.

To Chris Richardson: Move to Belfast. It’ll be a part of Ireland before you know it.

Looking forward to a similar article about China.

The minority viewpoint prevailing? Truly we are our fathers’ (England’s) country.

“Frustration” is certainly one word for it, “Apoplectic” and “Wrathful fury” is another. It’s a bizarre loophole that shouldn’t exist - but I doubt it will change as all our politicians are spineless and obsessed with securing their own jobs and opportunities. Like asking foxes to pass a law that demands an election to determine who will guard the henhouse, the Establishment takes care of themselves. Boris. Oh God. It’s actually happening. Make it all go away. I don’t like this angry little nativist swamp anymore.

Trump would love this. Only HIS supporters are allowed to vote.

Looks like more evidence of Putin's worldwide war with democracy. The Brexit campaign, just like our 2016 election, had his fingerprints all over it. And just like the US those is power continue to put their head in the sand instead of focusing on the real threat. Well, at least South Korea knows what to do when Russia comes around.

“If it’s going to be a no-deal, then so be it. At least we will be moving forward.” I suppose walking off a cliff counts as one kind of moving forward.

I have to admit that at least under these circumstances it is probably best that the least informed voters (The English Youth) are not allowed to swing the vote. England leaving the EU is what is best for England. It is no shock that those who have little life experience and even limited schooling are the only ones who truly oppose "Brexit". Sadly we have similar problems here. Maybe both countries should raise the voting age to 21.

Very superficial and misleading article. First of all, in the end voters elect a party to run the country. The party that commands a majority in the House of Commons has a five year mandate and it is the prerogative of the party to choose it's leader. Example, Blair stepped down for Brown and Cameron stepped down for May. Oddly perhaps, the Conservatives are more democratic than Labour. In the Tory Party, MPs who are representatives of the people, set the short list that then goes to members. In Labour MPs have lost almost all their say and through a bizarre set of recent rule changes Corbyn managed to pack the electorate to control the process. Second, if the new Tory leader cannot command a majority in the House, an election would follow quickly by law. Many feel Johnson may decide to do exactly that as a large consensus is that with Corbyn's star fading for many reasons, Johnson could easily beat him. As an interesting aside, the Liberal Democrats also elected a new leader this week. When the new leader was interviewed this morning, she said she would essentially disregard the EU referendum as she thought the voters got it wrong. Not very liberal or democratic. A final thought, many people in the UK wonder about the state of US democracy. Trump won big on very arcane rules while he lost the popular vote big. Also the gerrymandering, which happens in the UK as well and favours Labour, is out of control in the US and suggests results are not democratic.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Westminster system in the article. You say that "under the parliamentary system, the prime minister is elected directly by the governing party". This is not true. The PM is elected by members of the lower house of parliament, effectively by those in his party. In this case, those members have agreed to be bound by a vote of general party members, but this is a detail specific to the Tories and not present in all parties in all Westminster systems. And because once elected that way Boris Johnson will not have the support of a majority in the lower house, he will fairly quickly lose his job. Then, if, say, Jeremy Corbyn can persuade the Queen that he can command enough votes from his Labour party and other parties, he could become Prime Minister without an election. Or it could be a compromise candidate from a smaller party. Just whoever can get half the House of Commons to vote for them gets to be PM. As for the unfair voting system, the British people had the chance to adopt the Australian method of preferential vote counting in a referendum during the previous Tory/Liberal coalition government and turned it down. While not as fair as proportional representation, it does allow new parties to replace old and has sometimes handed the balance of power to independents. You have to wonder how on earth the referendum failed.

Kind of like the electoral college - where the minority gets to impose its will on the majority.

Miss Yeginsu has been covering British news and politics for long enough (?6 years?) to know that the British electoral system elects a party not a person. The Prime Minister is "primus inter pares" ie first among equals and serves as such while the Crown believes that he or she provides the best chance of forming a government that can achieve its objectives in Parliament (not necessarily with or by a majority of its own party.) "Despite the dissatisfaction, few people are calling for the prime minister to be elected directly." No, well there wouldn't be - as most Britons understand the constitution (no, it's not written in a simple codified form but aggregates centuries of change, blah blah, get over it.) There have been sufficiently frequent instances of the transfer of the Prime Ministership within a party in government in recent history (Thatcher to Major, Blair to Brown, Cameron to May) for this not to be too confusing even to the fairly young. Sadly those who are not confused by this do not seem to include Miss Yeginsu.

It's called a Parliamentary system. And if elections were held today, the Conservatives would win because very few people want Mr Corbyn as Prime Minister. So what is this article about? This: "Most galling for many is that the decision lies with the Tories..." In other words, Labour and the Liberal Democrats lost fair and square under the current system, so a few people want to change the system. In the U.S., some people want to pack the Supreme Court and get rid of the Electoral College for the same reason. For those people, this article will be an act of projection of Democrats' frustration onto the UK. But as the article states "But despite the dissatisfaction, few people are calling for the prime minister to be elected directly."

Of the many people I know in the UK, none (so far as I’m aware) are members of the Conservative party, so they don’t have a vote. If any of them are fuming none of them have mentioned it. They accept that this is how our system works. Until recently even party members didn’t get a vote for the leader, just MPs belonging to the party.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding here. In the UK the office of Prime Minister is NOT an elective post: no one ever votes directly for any PM. In each constituency the voters choose who will represent them in Parliament, usually along party lines. Each party chooses its leader. The party with a majority in the Commons becomes the government. The leader of that party goes to see the Queen who asks one question - can you form a government? (It is the Queen's government). Assuming the answer is 'yes' then the Queen sends the individual away to be PM. Mrs May was PM because she was elected by the voters of Maidenhead, the Tories had a parliamentary majority and the Tories chose her as their leader.

UK political party leaders are chosen by their respective party. Who chose Jeremy Corbyn? 121K Labor voters or 0.000224% of UK voters. That's how the parliamentary system works. Brexit was passed in a democratic UK referendum in 2016. I may disagree with the result but it was a fair and free referendum where the UK voters stated their preference for leaving the EU. There are no grounds to support the Remainers on a re-vote of the referendum. What is unclear is what type of break with the EU was approved by the UK voters. Theresa May presented one vision for an amicable breakup which was rejected by Parliament. If Boris Johnson cannot get his Brexit deal off the ground with the EU and a divided Parliament, it does make sense to let voters weigh in through a general election in the autumn.

It is ironic that Churchill said in 1947, "many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". I wonder what the ol' boy would think of Brexit? Now Britain with 1 percent of the electorate is deciding the fate of their country. It does challenge the notion that the parliamentary form of government as really "a democracy". America, with all our flaws, comes closer with our electoral college and hopefully replaced some day with a true national popular vote. Whether our system of "checks and balances" would have stymied something consequential like Brexit is the same system that is responsible for our muted response to climate change. It still begs the question of the best form of government.

Some members of the Conservative party who are choosing their new leader, and thus the next Prime Minister, are only 15 years old. Party rules allow for minors 15-18 to vote in such elections so long as they are members. Meanwhile, the Tories are staunchly against lowering the voting age for General Elections, and refused to allow 16 year olds to vote in the EU referendum despite public pressure to do so. Yet another messy contradiction in British politics that is driving growing contempt for the entire political process.