Liz Truss resigns as British PM

[Spotted Horses]

Oh, when they choose a leader they define their own process. In the case of Liz Truss, the paid up members decided, after the MPs whittled down the candidates to two.

This is still unclear, and I see no mention of the system in then press articles I have read. Are you saying that the Conservative MPs agreed to vote for whoever prevailed in some sort of poll of "paid-up members?"

[Todd]

A paid up member is someone who has paid the Tory party an annual fee to demonstrate their support. Here's the application website.

https://www.conservatives.com/join

£25 per year for a regular membership.  That's more than twice the annual membership to the AARP.  What benefits do members receive?

[Todd]

The choice of PM is actually his alone to make.

A silly anachronism.

But them's the actual rules in that pesky unwritten constitution of ours.

An unwritten constitution is no substitute for the real thing.

[Irons]

Pardon, but now I'm confused...so who gets to choose the next PM?  I had thought (by what I read re voting and needing a certain number that it was only MPs who could vote and that it was by the party in power)?

PD

A daft system. When the position of Party leader (not PM, which is causing confusion on this thread)  becomes available hopefuls put themselves forward. That goes to a ballot and the one with the least votes drops out. This process is repeated until only two are left standing. Then selection is taken out of the hands of MPs and the final vote goes to the Party membership.
A flawed process as recent events have proved. I think they will change the rules. 

[Irons]

No-one will quibble, I think, at sound tax planning and there's absolutely nothing illegal about tax avoidance.
Furthermore, I don't think anyone is accusing Mrs. Sunak of doing anything illegal. I fully expect what she did to be entirely legal -and she probably paid a pretty penny to ensure that it was.

The complaint is that she arranged her tax minimisation strategies despite being married to the guy who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and thus in charge of taxing us all.
I think the phrase is 'Caesar's wife must be above suspicion'.

So yes, she is a bad person for doing exactly what you or I would try to do (minimise taxes). It's one of the paradoxes of 'the public life' that what the little person does legally and morally becomes legal and scented with the stench of the highly immoral when the great and good do it.

Edited to add: Even if you want to be morally consistent about it, and thus absolve her for doing nothing more than you or I would do, the complaint is still that he should have had more sense than to allow his wife to get 'tax canny'. He's supposed to understand the political optics of the spouse of 'the tax guy' minimising her taxes to the extent of several hundred million pounds. It just looks clumsy.

Everyone in Australia will know this episode from a media mogul's interview at Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e97kq2XflKE
Some in Australia regard that as a smart man being honest and straightforward, especially when the parliamentarian waffles on about 'breaking the spirit of the law', which is oxymoronic.
Quite a few think, however, that a multi-billionaire shouldn't be quite so smug about it.

Yes, unfair as it may be, standards in public life should be higher although they seldom are. That I agree with. Rishi Sunak only become a member of parliament in 2015 when I would have imagined Mrs Sunak's tax arrangements had long been arranged. I very much doubt it crossed Rishi's mind to have a conversation with his wife to pay millions more of tax in case he reached high government office. Being wise after the event, he wished he did have.   

[71 dB]

Yes, unfair as it may be, standards in public life should be higher although they seldom are. That I agree with. Rishi Sunak only become a member of parliament in 2015 when I would have imagined Mrs Sunak's tax arrangements had long been arranged. I very much doubt it crossed Rishi's mind to have a conversation with his wife to pay millions more of tax in case he reached high government office. Being wise after the event, he wished he did have.

Sunak DID become the PM so why would he regret anything? The problems he will encounter as the PM will have nothing to do with his wife's taxes and everything to do with the fact that Brexit has put the country on a downward spiral.

[Spotted Horses]

Likewise with his US immigration status. He held a green card from the early 2000s until 2021: surrendering it was also a year too late.

This seems at odds with rules associated with permanent resident status (green card). It can't just be "held." When you apply for a green card you cannot leave the U.S. during the lengthy approval process, otherwise the application is considered abandoned. Your permanent resident status is also considered abandoned if you leave the U.S. for an extended period of time. When ever you leave you have to file papers with the INS explaining your absence and why it does not conflict with your intention of remaining a permanent resident of the U.S. If you ever file U.S. taxes as a nonresident permanent residency is also automatically revoked.

If he held a U.S. green card he was signing documents telling the U.S. INS that he considers himself a resident of the U.S. and no other country and that his absences were temporary.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

This seems at odds with rules associated with permanent resident status (green card). It can't just be "held." When you apply for a green card you cannot leave the U.S. during the lengthy approval process, otherwise the application is considered abandoned. Your permanent resident status is also considered abandoned if you leave the U.S. for an extended period of time. When ever you leave you have to file papers with the INS explaining your absence and why it does not conflict with your intention of remaining a permanent resident of the U.S. If you ever file U.S. taxes as a nonresident permanent residency is also automatically revoked.

If he held a U.S. green card he was signing documents telling the U.S. INS that he considers himself a resident of the U.S. and no other country and that his absences were temporary.

I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of US immigration law, but your last sentence would appear to be exactly what the problem here is: namely, that he was an elected MP for 6 years and Chancellor of the Exchequer for a year whilst holding US permanent residency, and that holding that status must have involved him telling the US authorities that he considered the USA his home... when, clearly, it wasn't.

From The Guardian:

The green card: why did Sunak cling on to a US "permanent resident" card even when UK chancellor? There has still not been an adequate explanation as to why Sunak kept his US green card for six years while an MP, including 19 months as chancellor. It does not seem that the move gave him tax advantages, but it does suggest he was keeping his options open in terms of a move back to the US in case his political career did not work out. US lawyers, though, have queried how he would have presented himself to US immigration officials when returning to his Santa Monica apartment in California, questioning whether they would have been misled about his true residence while a British MP. It is also understood that his wife gave up her green card before Sunak became chancellor, so it is not clear why he did not do so earlier.

And from National World:

The [green card/permanent resident] status generally requires you to pay US tax on your worldwide income and to make a legal pledge to one day make the USA your permanent residence. According to international tax experts Lesperance Associates, there is a way of holding the immigration status while living abroad so long as US taxes are paid on US income. Sunak's spokesperson confirmed he had filed US tax returns while he had the status "but specifically as a non-resident, in full compliance with the law". They also said he had only used the green card for travel purposes and had returned it ahead of his first official visit to the US in line with guidance from the US authorities. But, living away from the US indefinitely and using the green card solely for travel raises issues with his holding the status in the first place, and suggests Sunak may have broken US immigration laws when re-entering the country to visit his California home.

I mean, any way you slice it, it would appear to be a bit of a moral quagmire.

It does seem very strange.

A question for you AB,

You had said something earlier about according to UK law that one's permanent residency doesn't have to do with where one lived the preponderance of the time, but where one's heart was (if I'm recalling correctly) which to me is rather baffling particularly considering the kind of work that he has been doing at least over the past few years.  I'm certainly not an immigration and/or tax expert however.

PD

[Irons]

Well, I certainly wouldn't expect him to prospectively change his (and his spouse's) tax affairs. But the minute he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, in February 2020, he should have done so, for propriety's sake. His wife only agreed to pay UK taxes on her global income in April 2022, which is around 2 years too late in my opinion.

Likewise with his US immigration status. He held a green card from the early 2000s until 2021: surrendering it was also a year too late.

In a perfect world, yes. But like spending someone else's money it is far easier taking the moral high ground with someone else's tax affairs. As we have found out in no uncertain terms long before Rishi came along expecting our politicians to be whiter then white is in practice not on. If they take the piss, as Johnson did more then once, then they are out, quite right too. I recall the expense scandal of a few years ago. As we were discover they were all at it but it is not realistic to judge politicians on standards we do not apply to ourselves.     

[Pohjolas Daughter]

No, that was "domicile". That is, and over-simplifying greatly, you can be resident in the UK, but pay taxes in (say) France: you would be a UK resident, but domiciled in France.
Basically, your normal place of residence doesn't govern (necesarily) your place of domicile for tax purposes -but it's a very complex area of tax law that I don't pretend to understand well.

This indeed was the problem with Sunak's wife: she is an Indian citizen (and won't give it up, because she apparently intends to live in India in the future, looking after her parents and India doesn't allow dual citizenship). So her 'heart' is in India whil t her corporeal presence is in swanky country homes in the UK! So she's a resident of the UK, but domiciled in India for tax purposes -that makes her a "non-dom" in UK parlance. She has, of course, since changed that status, so she pays everything in the UK now, but that was her position until earlier this year.

Ah, o.k. thanks.  That makes sense now.

PD

[Florestan]

it is not realistic to judge politicians on standards we do not apply to ourselves.   

Agreed. Furthermore, politicians are not coming from Mars. They are the product of, and a reflection on, our societies and cultures. Dishonest, corrupt and stupid politicians are the representatives of a dishonest, corrupt and stupid society and culture.

[Spotted Horses]

It's not so much a question of morality. If you are electing someone to the highest political office, don't you want that to be a person who has an absolute personal commitment to the country. Not someone who is holding on to immigration status in other countries because he wants the option to bug off if things go south in the U.K?

[Que]

It's not so much a question of morality. If you are electing someone to the highest political office, don't you want that to be a person who has an absolute personal commitment to the country. Not someone who is holding on to immigration status in other countries because he wants the option to bug off if things go south in the U.K?

In Theresa May's words: he is a citizen of nowhere.... (See quote below) A cornerstone of the nationalist ideology behind Brexit! Don't you love the double standards in politics? 

"Today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass on the street ... but if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship means."

[Irons]

It's not so much a question of morality. If you are electing someone to the highest political office, don't you want that to be a person who has an absolute personal commitment to the country. Not someone who is holding on to immigration status in other countries because he wants the option to bug off if things go south in the U.K?

Precisely. That's what carpetbagging is: extracting what you can from a location as a matter of personal, opportunistic convenience, rather than because you feel a commitment to, or genuine care for, it in the long-run.

There's still a moral dimension to that sort of behaviour, of course.
But yes, it is also a very practical matter: when the proverbial hits the fan, you ought to be able to rely on your political leaders to be 100% with you for the fight, not having split loyalties or a tendency to run to sunnier (wealthier) climes when it seems opportune to do so. Entirely as you say, in fact.

Fair points. Oddly, the green card thing hardly caused a ripple in the UK Press. His extreme wealth and his wife's tax status deemed far more important.

To use a beacon of morality as an example. A sitting President of the USA buys a golf course in Scotland. Doubt he would rather live there then Florida but you never know.

[Fëanor]

If people foolishly think they are voting for PM, I can't stop them being that foolish. But they need to understand that their perception of reality and actual reality are two distinct things.

There is technically nothing to stop the King asking Brenda Davenport, backbench MP for Shornditchford, to become Prime Minister, regardless of what party wins the election and who's running it. The choice of PM is actually his alone to make. Convention (and commonsense) suggests the King would be unwise to ask Brenda to step up, given that she cannot command an absolutely majority in the House of Commons: she'd lose a vote of confidence three minutes after taking up her appointment, triggering the need to find a new PM. But them's the actual rules in that pesky unwritten constitution of ours.

I'm not so sure.  Canada too has the "Westminster" parliamentary system.  In practice, (if not "technically"), our Governor General, (surrogate for the Queen King), is constrained to appoint as PM the person who (a) leads the party with the most MPs, or (b) can otherwise show evidence that he/she has the support of a majority of MPs.  To not do so would surely precipitate a constitution crisis, (though this part of the Canadian constitution is also unwritten).

The latter, above, (b), would be the leader of a declared coalition. That came close to being the situation in 2008 when a potential coalition of other parties threatened to defeat the Conservative Party minority government under Stephen Harper.  However Harper dodge the problem by proroguing, (suspending), Parliament until the potential coalition dissolved.  Canada has never had a coalition government though it has had a number of minority governments.

[Todd]

Are the green card and tax minimization things enough to derail Sunak, or are they just noise? 

It looks like Sunak is taking some heat for skipping the UN climate thingy, but it looks like his majesty is skipping as well.  Is that just more noise?

[Florestan]

the case of Churchill in 1940.

That was an exceptional case in exceptional times, don't you think? How many times did the case repeat itself after 1945?

[Mandryka]

Are the green card and tax minimization things enough to derail Sunak, or are they just noise? 

It looks like Sunak is taking some heat for skipping the UN climate thingy, but it looks like his majesty is skipping as well.  Is that just more noise?

Noise. Boris is planning to go to the climate thingy.

Sunak is about to hammer trans rights. That should distract people from his cuts to public services.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Noise. Boris is planning to go to the climate thingy.

Sunak is about to hammer trans rights. That should distract people from his cuts to public services.

Huh?  I wouldn't have thought that Boris would have been invited?  Thought that it was just for current heads?

And I'm not certain what you mean by "hammer"...against?

PD

[Irons]

Are the green card and tax minimization things enough to derail Sunak, or are they just noise? 

It looks like Sunak is taking some heat for skipping the UN climate thingy, but it looks like his majesty is skipping as well.  Is that just more noise?

Noise.

King Charles is not going because his government told him not to.