After a week of resignations from MP’s and years of scandal, Boris Johnson’s resignation has the Brits curious who will be the country’s new leader.
On June 7th, 2022, Boris Johnson resigned from the position of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Johnson’s resignation means a new Prime Minister will need to be elected to replace him. The voting process may take up until October; however, there have been a few cases where it only took a few weeks for the decision to be made. In his resignation speech, Johnson declared that the elections should start immediately, and a voting timetable will get released in the coming week.
When a Prime Minister steps down, there must be a series of elections in the party to decide on a new party leader. Because the conservative party has the majority in the House of Commons, the newly elected party leader will become the country’s next prime minister.
A Conservative Member of Parliament (M.P.) will need to throw their name into the elections ring, signaling their desire to be the next prime minister. They must have eight fellow Conservative MP’s support to have their bids to have their name put on the ballot for voting. This means there may be a large field running for this position.
If there are more than two, there will be numerous rounds of voting to get the candidates down to two. In the first phase of the voting, called the shortlisting, only Members of Parliament participate in the ballot.
The first round of votes requires the candidates to get 5% of the votes to stay in the race. Whoever gets less is eliminated.
The next round requires the candidates to get 10% of the votes, and whoever does not gets eliminated. After this round, the candidate with the least votes will get eliminated until two competitors remain.
In the second phase, called the final ballot, all the Conservative party members around the country vote between the remaining two participants. Whoever gets the 50% or higher of the votes wins and becomes the Prime Minister.
Two names that could partake are Jeremy Hunt, who went to the final ballot in 2019 against Boris Johnson, and Sajid Javid, who also ran in 2019. Their intentions have not been formally announced, but they are said to be frontrunners.
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