(A What If Question)Can Nigel Farage The Prime Minister?

[davrobcarall]

before anyone gets angry,i was wondering as he is leader of his party and not runnning for a mp,can he then be the prime minister if his party gets the majority?
i know he is a mep.
just wondering how this would happen if not an elected british mp.

[fiction-factory]

I'm not sure there's a legal requirement but in the only case I can remember when Alec Douglas Holme became leader of the party they found a safe seat for him and he won that and became an MP

[Jackdaw33]

In theory yes, in practice no.

[ToraToraTora]

yes, it's been done, Marquess of Salisbury was PM and not an MP. Others too....
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2013/04/24/prime-ministers-in-the-house-of-lords/

[fiction-factory]

His party is unlikely to win more than a handful of seats and certainly won't win more than a dozen anyway so it's not going to be an issue

[New Judge]

The Prime Minister is appointed by the Queen. She can choose who she wishes but convention has it that it must be the person most likely to command a majority in the Commons.

[Peter Pedant]

// yes, it's been done, Marquess of Salisbury was PM// (*)
and he was the last.
George V could not decide whether to ask Lord Curzon ( "I am george nathanial curson and I am a very superior person" that one) to form a ministry in 1935 and was advised by Lord Stamfordham (**) Di's grandfather, not to. The PM it was felt should be questioned on policy by the commons and that was not possible

Mossis Thotcher tried to have a Foreign Secty in the Lords - Lord Carrington - but as he lost the Falklands, the experiment was not deemed a success.

(*) Robt Gascoyne Cecil had a son Ld Edward Cecil who wrote memoirs of an egyptian official. When the Boer War broke out 1899, there was no money to pay the army in Egypt. Nichty Nochty - the cupboard was bare, down to their last piastre. Lord Eddie went down to Baring Bros in downtown Cairo and wrote out a personal cheque for £1m. (between a hundred million and a billion nowadays) and one of the Baring bros murmured - "and how do we know this cheque will be honoured my lord?"
and lord eddie answered - because my father is prime minister. The money was made available.

(**) that is stam-fuddum - played well by Bill Nighy in The Little Prince.

[jourdain2]

I remember that there was a headline about Alex Douglas-Hume. It read 'How can a man become a P.M. before he's become an M.P.' Not sure where it came from, but it was memorable.

[davrobcarall]

thank you guys :D