Do British People Vote on This?

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

British people do not vote on who becomes Prime Minister. But if you elect a parliament like we did in 2019, for instance, with Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party, he emerges as Prime Minister. So Liz Trost in theory had until January 2025 before she had to seek an election and the same will be true in theory of this replacement. A petition launched by the website Conservative Post to return Boris Johnson to number 10 has received a 10,000 signatures.

Liz Truss accomplished at least one thing in her 45 days as prime minister: She set a record for the shortest term in office. The Atlantic’s Tom McTague explains her disastrous tenure.

This episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Avishay Artsy, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King.

Correction, October 21: An earlier version of the episode misattributed a quote to British politician Penny Mordaunt. The error has been corrected.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained

Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices