AHC: UK Party wins most seats, loses leader

Is there a scenario in the last century where a political party in the UK could have won enough seats to form a government, but had its leader - be they an incumbent Prime Minister or not - lose his/her own seat? If so, who would have been a likely replacement as Prime Minister?
 
Is there a scenario in the last century where a political party in the UK could have won enough seats to form a government, but had its leader - be they an incumbent Prime Minister or not - lose his/her own seat? If so, who would have been a likely replacement as Prime Minister?

I think they would just get a backbencher to resign in exchange for a seat in the Lords.
 
Wouldn't that trigger a by-election? In the interim, the country's going to need a Prime Minister.
 
a) Prime Ministers of the UK do not need to be sitting MPs - they've occasionally been Lords. Indeed it was only recently that members of cabinet did not have to resign their seats to be members of the cabinet

b) High ranking party members will usually have been guided to so-called safe seats thus making it unlikely they'd lose theirs
 
While party leaders are normally in safe seats that's not always so. Often to be a party leader you've have to be in parliament for several elections and what starts out as a safe seat can become marginal due to demographic and boundary changes. Look at what happened to John Howard in Australia.
 
Indeed it was only recently that members of cabinet did not have to resign their seats to be members of the cabinet...

AFAIK this is utterly wrong. Ministers are required to be MPs or Lords, and an MP cannot legally resign.

You may be thinking of the practice of appointing an MP as "Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds", an "office of profit under the Crown". Accepting such an office disqualifies the MP to serve Parliament, achieving de facto resignation.
 
Chloe Smith has been touted as a future Tory leader in quite a few timelines on here, and she occupies the relatively marginal seat of Norwich North.
 

AndyC

Donor
AFAIK this is utterly wrong. Ministers are required to be MPs or Lords, and an MP cannot legally resign.

Nope. In practice, they always are, but Ministers need not be either MPs or Lords.

If they aren't, huge pressure will be put on them to be so (although I believe that during the Second World War, preparations were made for non-Parliamentary Ministers to be able to answer to Parliament.

Alec Douglas-Home was neither a Lord or an MP for a couple of weeks whilst a by-election was prepared and held, but remained PM
 
It would be down to the the Parliamentary party to select a new leader PDQ who would then become, in the interim at least, Prime Minister. The real fun starts after ex party leader finds another seat and returns to parliament, but interim leader decides to sit tight instead. E.g. Margaret Thatcher looses her seat in 87 but the Tories get back in, Hestletine gets the nod as leader. Late 87 Thatcher gets back in, but Hestletine decides not to hand back the reigns...
 
There was however a cabinet, McMillan had resigned due to illness. The conservatives however had a majority, over a year before they had to call an election, which they lost, and two cabinet ministers resigned on the issue. Totally different from an MP being specifically rejected by his constituents, as every wannabe PM in the labour party would point out.
 
I've always wondered this too, I've often wondered what if in 2005 Reg Keys somehow defeated Tony Blair.

I assume the Deputy Prime Minister could take over as a temporary PM whilst a by-election occurs when some Labour MP takes the Chiltern Hundreds (or whatever it's called). It's difficult to say though as it's never happened before (to my knowledge), so I can imagine there'd be a party-wide agreement on what to do.
 
McMillan winsa marginal Nothern seat in 1950, instead of Bromley in a by election.

Tories narrowly win the 1964 election (he would have to have had better doctors)
 
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