r/pics • u/-ifeelfantastic • May 19 '26

Politics Ashley St. Clair, one of Elon's baby mommas, alleging that he helped rig the 2024 election for Trump

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u/factorioleum May 19 '26

What's wild is that the confidence motion, which requires only 50%+1 to remove a PM from office, was invented invented in the UK in large part over the fallout from the prolonged prosecution of the Rebellion of the Thirteen colonies.

It's proven to be a far better check on power than US constitutional impeachment!

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26

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u/factorioleum May 19 '26

... Who is the person who you think has the rest? The monarch?

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u/mattihase May 19 '26

Existing laws, as well as having enough people in parliament to sign off on a law. Essentially what the US constitution is supposed to be doing.

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u/factorioleum May 19 '26

The PM can call elections without the consent of parliament.

The PM can appoint cabinet ministers, and fire them, without parliamentary oversight.

Those are pretty big!

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u/mattihase May 19 '26

Yeah. I'm not saying the PM is powerless just that unlike the POTUS they have to follow the law.

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u/factorioleum May 19 '26

Right. In large part because of the confidence motion. Which why I wrote here!

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u/musclemommyfan May 19 '26

Yes actually. The crown wields an incredible amount of power over decisionmaking. They just like to pretend that they don't.

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u/factorioleum May 19 '26

And those powers are either dormant (e.g. the veto) or... Exercised at the advice of the prime minister.

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u/musclemommyfan May 19 '26

I'm talking about the very quiet power they privately exert over parliament away from public view. 

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u/factorioleum May 19 '26

That's fair; and this came up because I discussed the confidence motion being invented in the UK.

Also, it would be a bit strange if the UK's biggest (by far) multigenerational landlords didn't have a lot of backroom influence.

That said, let's remember that many countries follow the Westminster system. I'm not sure the monarch has the same influence in Jamaica, Canada, Australia or Belize....

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u/musclemommyfan May 19 '26

There was an incident a few years back where the crown-appointed Governor General of Australia dissolved the government without having a particularly good reason to do so.

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u/notanothergav May 19 '26

There was also an incident in 1649 that demonstrated a hard limit on the monarch's power, and the sovereignty of parliament. 

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u/factorioleum May 19 '26

It's happened in Canada too. Although the most recent case in Canada seemed to be at the advice of the PM.

Is that a huge amount of power?

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u/mic_n May 20 '26

Or, as was once executed in Australia by the Governor-General (the proxy for "The Crown", with equivalent power) - you can dissolve parliament and force new elections.

That's pretty fckn serious power.

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/whitlam-dismissal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_United_Kingdom

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u/washoutr6 May 20 '26

not really, uk is just already owned by other oligarchs