On How Our Leaders Are Selected

Jul 23, 2019 by Dan in Democracy

It’s true that Boris has become the PM on the say so of just 0.13% of the population – 92,153 Tory party members, in fact. Though this is about 2-3 times the number of votes most MPs can hope for in a general election, for such a dominant position, such a thing should never be allowed. Yet this is how our current, horribly flawed, system works (the Libertarian Party plans to change all that – but we’ll talk about that another time). Instead let’s take a moment to put this regime change into perspective for the sake of crying Remainers.

While Boris was elected by just 92,153 Tory party members, Theresa May was elected by an even smaller % of the population. Her selection never even went to party members and so she became PM on the back of just 199 votes – less than 0.0003% of the population. I’m sure remainers were very upset about this too and kicked up a huge stink about it though, it seems, not as much as they are now about Boris. With that in mind a final comparison: Von der Leyen, the new EU Commission President, was elected by no more than 73 UK citizens – or less than 0.0001% of the population – yet from Remainers on this all I hear is tumbleweeds rolling by and the distant chirping of crickets. I have to say no more than 73 UK citizens because that’s how many MEPs the UK has. It’s unlikely, given the party make-up of UK MEPs, that all 73 voted for Van der Leyen, but we don’t actually know, because it’s a secret ballot.

So there we have it. Boris was made PM by a vote 463 x bigger than the vote which made Theresa May PM, and 1262 x bigger than the number of UK votes given to the new EU Commission President. While I am unhappy with this whole way of doing things, both at home and abroad, it seems some are only unhappy because this time it’s Boris.

As I mentioned, the Libertarian Party intends to change this way of doing things completely. More in our manifesto pledges being released over the summer months: https://libertarianparty.co.uk/2019/06/27/new-libertarian-party-manifesto-2019/

(On a side note, it’s always amusing to watch a left-wing rag like the New Statesman try to keep balance on the shifting sands of current affairs, they might find it easier if they had a consistent position themselves. Having been content to kick at the result of the democratic Brexit referendum in spite of it having the support of 17.4 million voters, they now find it in themselves to cry about how few people actually voted to put Bojo in office today. That the highest authority in the land is not selected by popular vote is a fair criticism, it’s true, though their seemingly selective support for democracy only when it suits their Remain preferences suggests to me hypocrisy.)