UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in office.

Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by iLoveOncall on Thursday October 20, 2022 @09:10AM (#33274144)

The entire population was able to vote to elect the party, and the party then elected her as PM. Her position was 100% legitimate, whether you like it or not.

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Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by klelatti on Thursday October 20, 2022 @09:18AM (#33274253)

It would be a reasonable comment if Conservative MP's - who are elected by voters - had chosen her. However, Rishi Sunak was their choice. Instead she was chosen by a bit more than 100k members.

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Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by castis on Thursday October 20, 2022 @09:17AM (#33274232)

Legitimate only means that the :rules: were followed and nothing more. It does not mean that the rules or the system they reside in are just.

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Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by iLoveOncall on Thursday October 20, 2022 @09:40AM (#33274557)

I never claimed otherwise. I just answered to the comment stating that she was illigetimally in her position, as if the UK was a dictatorship, which isn't the case.

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Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by klelatti on Thursday October 20, 2022 @10:56AM (#33275715)

I think that there is a bit more nuance needed if you claim 100% legitimacy.

Winning an election on one manifesto, being chosen by 100k members, and then ripping the manifesto up and trying to implement a set of completely different policies would strike most, I think, as not 100% legitimate even if it's legal.

And just to add that she campaigned with members on ripping up the manifesto.

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Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by mannykannot on Thursday October 20, 2022 @09:39PM (#33283250)

The word legitimacy can be interpreted in either a normative way or a “positive” (see positivism) way. The first meaning refers to political philosophy and deals with questions such as: What are the right sources of legitimacy? Is a specific political order or regime worthy of recognition? As such, legitimacy is a classic topic of political philosophy.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/legitimacy

While I agree with you that it would be incorrect to call Truss' premiership illegitimate, I feel that uniqueuid's comment was using the term according to the above usage.

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Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by mikro2nd on Thursday October 20, 2022 @09:58AM (#33274775)

Not the only meaning of "legitimate". There's also "Authentic, real, genuine" and "Conforming to known principles, or established or accepted rules or standards; valid." (Wiktionary) There's a question of acceptability involved here, I feel.

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Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by uniqueuid on Thursday October 20, 2022 @09:22AM (#33274296)

Although legally fine, there certainly is some lack of legitimacy when PMs are elected by party members after the predecessor is axed, because the voters never had a chance to assess the person they end up with (in this role).

The larger issue is that the new Tories' procedure for producing candidates leads to a winner that has a large majority of parliament against her.

There is now a problematic mixture of parliamentary and Tory voter legitimization. That would be resolved by a true general election.

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Re:UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after just 45 days in... by Nextgrid on Thursday October 20, 2022 @09:23AM (#33274312)

Being considered legitimate according to a flawed system doesn't mean the system isn't flawed.

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