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There are then the powers the Prime Minister has which do not involve the Royal Prerogative. A less bloody part of the PM’s role, though maybe not metaphorically, is to chair meetings of the UK Cabinet, where the government makes it biggest policy decisions. They are also the political head of the Civil Service, made up of people who work for various government departments whose role is to help ministers put together and carry out their policies. In this capacity, the Prime Minister has the power to appoint senior civil servants and decides how the many government departments shall be run.
Perhaps the most frequently conflict-ridden job of the PM is to respond to MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions every Wednesday afternoon. For about half an hour, the PM alone has to answer the questions of MPs both from their own party and from opposition parties regarding government policy and decisions. It allows MPs to publicly scrutinise the PM and their actions, with the goal of opposition MPs and perhaps MPs of their own party being to highlight the failings of the current government. It requires the Prime Minister to be quick-witted and know about every government policy in sufficient detail to be able to counter scrutiny of them.
The Prime Minister also has weekly meetings with the Queen, where he or she will inform her of what the government is doing and will listen to her advice on various current issues. However the Prime Minister does not have to act on the advice of the Queen. It is convention in the UK that whilst the Queen may reign, it is the Prime Minister who rules.
As head of the government, the PM takes ultimate responsibility for any successes or failings in government policy. They can fire ministers to the backbenches if their policies are not working or their performance is inadequate (or if they are supremely unpopular). In Theresa May’s case, she conducted a number of sackings of ministers when she became PM because she wanted to put government on a different track to the one constructed by David Cameron.
Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the Prime Minister can table a motion of confidence in his or her own government if the government keeps on losing votes in the Commons. If 66% of MPs vote against the government, a snap election is held. A Prime Minister will do this in the hope of winning more parliamentary seats for their party, so that they can then win more Commons votes, making for more stable governance.
As you can see from the above list, the Prime Minister has a lot of power. However, that power is checked by a range of other democratic forces which limit the power of the PM. Their power to push forward certain policies, appoint and make decisions is restrained by the requirement of keeping the rest of their party on side. If they do not keep party unity, they may start to lose Commons votes, depending on the size of their majority, and perhaps eventually find themselves being ousted by their own side.
Image: By U.S. Department of State from United States [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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