The Johnson government isn't democratically elected by any usual definition.
The government doesn't have a parliamentary majority, and Boris hasn't stood as a PM candidate in a general election.
The government doesn't have a parliamentary majority, and Boris hasn't stood as a PM candidate in a general election.
There's another problem, too. The First Past the Post electoral system prevents the electorate from correcting the state of affairs (except perhaps by accident). Call me cynical, but calls for an early general election under the existing system look like a power grab rather than a sincere attempt to let the electorate decide.
FPTP typically overrepresents some parties at the cost of others (and at the cost of voters). Politicians might want an election when they believe they will be more overrepresented afterwards than before. That's why it's no surprise for the opposition to suddenly stop wanting an election when the government begins to want one.
Alec Douglas-Home became PM while a member of the House of Lords in 1963, though he renounced his peerage on becoming PM and stood for a safe seat (Kinross and Western Perthshire). While waiting for the by-election, he was PM without being a member of either house.
It's unlikely this will happen again, but there's as far as I know still no law preventing it.
More importantly, the government isn't non-democratic by any definition.
Specifically, Boris was elected prime minister by a very small number of people, and no-one voted for the cabinet.
> PM wants an election as well, which he's likely to win (well, according to polls... which are likely wrong!)
It's kind of irrelevant what the PM wants - general elections are held in accordance to the Fixed Term Parliament Act 2011 (which was passed when the tories were in government). If he wants an election, it has to be with the consent of Parliament (ie the people).
Not since 1931 has a UK party received a majority of votes cast. A quirk of the voting system has usually given a parliamentary majority to one party.
Voters didn't specifically vote for a minority government in 2017. In fact, a greater proportion of them voted for the Conservative party than in the previous election, at which it "won" a majority.
FPTP can even deny a parliamentary majority to a party with a majority of votes. This is essentially what happened in the last pre-Apartheid election in South Africa, at which most voters voted for the anti-Apartheid coalition.
I'd even go as far as to partly disagree with your judgement that FPTP isn't a secret. Clearly many do know that the House of Commons is elected by FPTP, but even most political correspondents seem unaware of its far-reaching consequences. Among ordinary voters, many are unaware of FPTP. I've met UK voters who don't accept the UK doesn't already have PR for general elections.
(I've also met teachers who tell me their politics students believe we have PR until taught otherwise. I think it's a natural assumption that it necessarily takes more votes to win an election than to lose.)
I keep having arguments with UK voters that think that it takes a majority in a constituency to win a seat, for example. Many refuse to believe this isn't the case even when I give examples showing it takes just a plurality in each seat, because it just seems wrong to a lot of people, even when asking them how else you'd pick the winner in a single-seat constituency without any form of ranked voting.
FPTP just seems to seem totally counter-intuitive to people when you make them actually work through the implications.
As an immigrant, it's incredibly frustrating to come across "natives" that knows less about their own electoral system than I do.
Well, you're wrong, so why don't you go and do the basic reading first?
"In a democratic government the right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to all."
The lack of proportional representation deprives UK voters of both majority rule and adequate minority representation. The consequences are usually subtle, but the February 1974 general election gave the most seats to a party without the most votes. The 1951 election gave a majority of seats to a party without the most votes.