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How Reform UK can use one very surprising institution to help them win big.uk

Nigel Farage may need to utilise help from a surprising source.

Nigel Farage may need to utilise help from a surprising source.

Nigel Farage may need to utilise help from a surprising source. (Image: Thomas Krych/Anadolu via Getty Images)

This week Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said a future government led by him could appoint cabinet ministers from outside Parliament. Drawing some comparison with the American system where top positions like Treasury Secretary are often filled by people never elected to office, Farage dismissed the idea ministers must be MPs.

A ministry of all the talents is no bad idea. But whether the public would accept say a Foreign Secretary not in Parliament at all is up for debate. One way to appoint non-MPs easily to top positions in government would be to appoint members of the House of Lords to cabinet.

This is exactly what the previous Tory government did when it ennobled ex-PM David Cameron and put him in charge of the Foreign Office.

Not only is there no rule against cabinet ministers being peers but even the Prime Minister could come from the Lords.

Until the 1900s it was very common for peers to become PM. This only changed when convention started dictating the leader of the government should be an elected MP.

The issue for Farage is he is on record wanting to replace the House of Lords with a “smaller, democratic” upper chamber.

Yet keeping the Lords in the short-to-medium-term at least not only might be the easiest way for Reform to appoint non-MPs to top positions in government, but – if he became PM – Farage may find it to his advantage to retain the Lords.

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