We Could Learn a Lot from the Brits

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The American presidential election process is a slow-moving train that begins leaving the station in January of one year as candidates start announcing and campaigning in the early states that actually decide for the rest of us who the eventual nominees will be, and finally pulls into the station in January of the following year when the incoming president is inaugurated.  Electing and installing a President of the United States is a long and cumbersome process, but does it really have to be that way?

Great Britain, like the United States, is also a complicated country with a complex democratic system for selecting their national leader, the Prime Minister, and the Brits' way of doing things certainly sprints along at an invigorating pace compared to that of their American cousins.

Britain's former Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, issued a surprise call for a "snap" general election in Great Britain on May 22nd of this year.  Sunak set the date for the election to be July 4th, just 43 days into the future.  The election was held on the scheduled date, Sunak's party, the Conservatives (Tories) lost decisively, and the Labour Party under the leadership of Keir Starmer won.  The results were announced late in the evening of July 4th.   The next morning, July 5th, Keir Starmer met with King Charles III and was officially appointed Prime Minister of Great Britain.  Later on that day Rishi Sunak vacated the Prime Minister's official residence in London at #10 Downing Street, and the Starmer's moved in.  Also on July 5th Starmer began officially naming his cabinet ministers, and on July 6th he held his first cabinet meeting.

It took less that fifty days to call for an election, conduct a nationwide campaign, hold an election, and get the new government up and running. 

Yes, the British "parliamentary" system of democracy is different than the  "quasi-direct" democracy of the United States (which filters through a phoney-baloney "electoral college"), but both have a strong rooting in the will of the people, and political leaders in both countries are dependent upon support form the majority of the population in order to maintain their power.

When the British go to the polls in a national election, they are not directly electing a Prime Minister, they are instead electing Members of Parliament, something roughly the equivalent of our United States Members of Congress.   Whichever political party in Britain wins the most seats in Parliament then has the strongest hand in naming the Prime Minister who is already serving as the elected "leader" of his or her party and colleagues in Parliament.

There are a few smaller parties, and if neither of the two major parties, Labour or the Conservatives, win an outright majority, a race is on for the leaders of the major parties to try and form a "coalition" government with enough votes to be dominant in Parliament.  In this week's case, Labour won with enough votes to form a government on its own.   The Parliament and it's leader, the Prime Minister, will dominate the government for five years or until the Parliament issues a simple vote of "no confidence,"  or until a Prime Minister calls for an earlier "snap" election to try and take advantage of a political situation.

The British select and get their Prime Ministers into office far more quickly than we do Presidents in the United States, and if they feel the need to replace the sitting leader of their country, a vote of "no confidence" is far easier and quicker than an impeachment.

Also, if the race for a particular seat in Parliament turns out to be so close that a candidate demands a recount, the recount is held that evening, just after the votes have been counted the first time.

We could learn a lot from the Brits.