You’re right, conceding defeat isn’t a requirement, but it helps to clarify the political situation quickly after the election. If one party had a clear majority in the Commons and the other parties acknowledge it, then the victorious party can carry on with the government formation, and the Crown knows who to summon.
It’s in the ambiguous situation of a hung parliament where concessions can play a more significant role. For instance, in the 1957 federal election in Canada, the Liberals were in power and called the election. They lost their majority and came in a close second in the seat count, only a few seats behind the PCs. There were three other smaller parties. Some of the Liberal party operatives urged the prime minister, St Laurent, to stay in office and work out a deal with the third parties. He rejected that idea and concluded that having lost their majority and come in second, they should concede defeat and suggest that the GovGen call on the leader of the PCs to form the government. That concession clarified the political situation quickly.
It used to be the case that PMs defeated in an election would continue on until formally sacked by the Commons. Disraeli ended that in…1860…? by resigning as soon as the election results were in.
Similar situation in 1974 in the UK. As the then leader of the (third party) Liberals remarked, “It may not be clear who’s won the election, but it is clear who has lost”, and so the government that had called the election was replaced.
But that’s only because it agrees with your preconceived notions.
Viewed from how you consider the question was posed, the answer is fatally flawed.
There are two parts to the question and they are inconsistent.
2. “QE2 for whatever reason offers the position to Amelia Abernathy and she accepts”
Who is PM? Amelia Abernathy. You can’t appoint yourself PM. As Amelia patently doesn’t have parliamentary support that would be a coup d’etat.
But you can’t get to that point from the preceding clause.
“So the House of Commons puts forth James Johnson as their PM candidate”
Immediately after an election the HoR or Commons or which ever term describes the executive chamber is still dissolved and government has not been formed. From that point Banksiamans post #131 on procedure is difficult to improve on. Under these circumstances Amelia Abernathy could get to be PM by demonstrating to the Monarch that they can command a majority vote (even if leading a minority government).
If it is mid-term, the government has formed and Parliament is sitting and passes the motion “That James Johnson be immediately commissioned as Prime Minister” then the Monarchy will not/cannot override the unequivocal and unambiguous wishes of Parliament, because that would make the country an absolute monarchy about to quickly become a republic. Amelia Abernathy’s name never gets into the formal discussion.
You may be interested in an account of what happened in 1974 when Prime Minister Edward Heath called a snap election and failed to win a majority. Conservatives won more votes but fewer seats than Labour and the Liberals held the balance of power. They were unable to do a deal with either of the other parties, however.
This was on 21st February and negotiations dragged on until 4th March, when Heath finally conceded and Harold Wilson moved into No 10 to form a short-lived minority Labour government.
That’s necessary in Canada. At the federal level, a minister has to be appointed to the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada (which gives the new minister power to receive confidential information and simultaneously be bound by statutory release provisions for info), and also be named as the relevant minister.
Similar at the provincial level : they need to be formally named to the provincial Executive Council, and appointed as minister of the department.
Those appointments are made by OC.
Unlike the British practice, there’s normally a longer transition period (ten days to three weeks) and an incoming government doesn’t exercise any powers until those formal appointments are made.
While I can appreciate the idea of a new Minister “getting down to work” immediately by meeting the Permanent Under-Secretary and talking about the new government’s priorities, I would think that until the formal appointment is made, the incoming government would not be able to exercise any legal powers, like ministerial orders, appointment of officials, and so on. They have to have legal authority to do so, which comes from the formal appointment to the ministerial positions.
For all I know, there may be some such formality in the UK too, but it would be understood that any announcement of such decisions is (tacitly or not) on the condition that as soon as the formalities permit the government will do XYZ.
This is nitpicking. A new minister would not start throwing their weight around immediately anyway. There will be all kinds of formalities, especially in sensitive departments like The Home Office or Defence and a good deal of briefing to be done.
No doubt a new minister has to sign several legal documents before they can even open the safe in their office, let alone issue executive orders.
There’s a famous story that on the evening of the day Churchill was appointed to be First Lord of the Admiralty on September 3rd 1939, he immediately strolled into the building, and into the First Lord’s office, he crossed the room and swivelled open a wooden panel that nobody knew was there which showed the tactical situation in the Atlantic on 25 May 1915, when he had last been in the room.
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And to add to the interesting points - the (orderly) transfer of power to the new PM and new cabinet will happen usually about a week after the election, once the HoS has “appointed” the new PM, and the new PM has determined his list of cabinet ministers and the formalties have bee followed… and then it may sometimes be several weeks before the new members take their seats (are sworn in) in the next session of parliament.
As demonstrated by the electoral college discussion - in the USA an “impossible” but legal glitch in the electoral college produces a president who remains in power, barring impeachment, for 4 years; in the parliamentary session, Amelia or whomever only gets to stay there for as long as it taks the house to convene and call a non-confidence vote; which Ameila (or more probably, the Head of State) can delay for quite a while by not calling a session of parliament.
Usually a new PM will call the house to sit fairly soon to get started on his/her new initiatives.
To the extent that the weight they need to throw around is what was in their manifesto, their civil servants should already be fairly well up to speed through the pre-election consultation/preparation period: though there would of course be a fair amount of briefing to be done on *how * this or that grand promise could be operationalised, which in turn has to be developed into any necessary legislation, dealing with the Treasury on the financial implications and so on. Of course, if it’s a matter of egregious ranting and sacking people left, right and centre, you might expect gossipy leaks to start hitting the media pretty quickly.
But Brown and Blair sprang the idea of operational independence for the Bank of England without much warning on the Tuesday after the general election that brought them in, in 1997. Likewise, the incoming Coalition government of 2010 got down to abolishing assorted quangos and government websites pretty quickly - but that had been well-trailed and was in any case always likely with a Tory-led government.
Chessic Sense, you keep asking how the GovGen and the party leaders know who the GovGen will summon to form a government.
It’s generally known on election night.
For example, in the 2015 federal election, called by Prime Minister Harper, five parties elected Members of Parliament.
There were 338 seats in the House of Commons. That meant 170 seats were needed for a majority
On election night, the breakdown of seats won was as follows:
Liberals (Trudeau): 184
Conservatives (Harper): 99
New Democrats (Mulcair): 44
Bloc québécois (Duceppe): 10
Greens (May): 1
Looking at these standings, it’s obvious who won and would form a majority: Trudeau and the Liberals had a clear majority in the Commons, 14 seats more than needed.
Prime Minister Harper was defeated. His Conservatives only had 99 seats. They had lost their majority.
Harper conceded that night, as did the other three party leaders. Harper also announced his retirement from politics.
It was clear that night that the GovGen would call on Trudeau to form the government.
In Europe, many parliamentary systems like Denmark and the Netherlands use rapporteurs to oversee government negotiations on behalf of the monarch.
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There is an important and continuing debate about if our representatives should do what they are told, or should think for themselves. The German Greens and the Australian Labor Party were both political parties formed as “outsiders”, originally with the understanding that political representatives tend to become co-opted by the establishment, and hence formed with the intention that the membership of the party should tell the elected representatives what to do and what to think.
In Aus, a vestige of that system is that, in the Labor party, the PM has to negotiate with his parliamentary party about who the ministers will be. Then after the party has decided, a Person goes to the HOS and provides the HOS with a list of assignments.
The appointment by the HOS is technically important, because the actually machinery of government technically looks to the HOS, and the HOS only acts (and acts only) on the advice of people who have been appointed as ministers. This isn’t important in the day to day running of the state, but when you want to see what “the law” is, or who is “running the department”, it’s all done on declarations by the HOS.
By conceding defeat, the loosing candidate implicitly recognises the will of the people as expressed in the election, and by doing so sets themselves up as a righteous contender for the /next/ electoral cycle.
This is important in Aus, because traditionally some people don’t really recognise parliament as being valid government (“all property is theft”, “whoever puts his hand on me to govern me is an usurper”, “you have nothing to loose but your chains” etc). In particular, the left wing of the political spectrum only organised /after/ federation, and never thought that they had a proper say in the structure of the constitution.
Vote counting in Aus will take days to finalize, may take weeks, and then you’ve got appeals. Which in most cases are only important to the people involved, not relevant to the formation of government. Losers don’t /have/ to be gracious, but it’s a bad look (which is important), and a hanging election is actually disruptive on several levels. But having said that, what loosing party cares how disruptive they are towards government by the majority party? (In Aus) it’s the political statement that is important, not the mechanics of government.
I believe that’s because under their electoral systems, minority and coalition governments are more likely than in Westminster systems. That can lead to uncertainty as to who can form a government. The rapporteur is not to decide the issue, but to take soundings of the political situation and perhaps assist the parties to reach an accommodation.
A significant part of my OP, and indeed my confusion/ignorance, seems to have been ignored:
I’m most interested in how one would form a government when a party doesn’t have a majority and the two leaders are nearly tied. OK, sure, each other party needs to court Chess, but how? When? What does the HoS do in the meantime?
It’s all cut an dry when Labour takes 60%, especially when Labour was already the Government. I’m interested in the technicalities and specifics of when they don’t and aren’t.
We’ve covered the change of Opposition-to-Government fairly well at this point, so I’d like to hear more about how the parties proceed when forming a government it hard.
