As a non-Commonwealther, what exactly is the PM supposed to (or not supposed) to do? In school the PM was always explained as "their version of President," which I know waxes over tonnes of detail.
The day after the proroguing announcement, I read a bit that claimed this was "normal" in the UK Parliament. What makes this so particularly unusual and illegal?
The situation now is that the prime minister doesn't have majority support in parliament and is using powers like prorogation to act against the majority of parliament.
> I read a bit that claimed this was "normal" in the UK Parliament.
Short prorogations are normal in order to prepare for Queen's speeches. However, this one is unusually long, with a political context of preventing parliament from exercising their powers.
> what exactly is the PM supposed to (or not supposed) to do?
Normally this kind of conflict doesn't arise, because the government has a large majority, and if they cease to have a majority then the PM is replaced by a no-confidence vote.
Normally the PM is supposed to Be A Good Chap and Do The Decent Thing, which are ill-defined concepts from British honour culture, but have basically gone out the window with Johnson's behaviour.
Recess is just a quick break for the conference season, and is normal at this time of year. Progrogation brings all parliamentary business to an end, bills are not carried over to the next session (so work on them has to start from scratch), and select committees can't sit. That's a very different state of affairs.
In US terms the role of the PM in European parliamentary democracies is closer to the role of the head of a US government agency than the president, i.e. the head of the DOD, USDA, DOE etc.
Except the role of this "agency" is "run the country". But it's the same in the sense that the head of a US agency serves at the pleasure of the president, the PM serves at the pleasure of parliament.
We elect a parliament. Then one of them goes to the Governor general and says "I have support of the majority of the members", and voila: they are the Prime Minister.
Could be any member, from any party, for any reason, just so long as the majority of MPs support the person.
And once that person is PM, that just means they sit in and control the Prime Minister's office, and choose the Cabinet.
After that, they're just a figurehead who happens to be the MP with the most power.
My Hail-Mary hope for this next election is that Jody Wilson-Rayboul reruns as an independent, wins, then Trudeau gets a minority and gets kicked out as head of the Liberals. This leaves a strange minority government situation that is perfect for Jody to take charge as the first independent PM. (It could happen!)
Of course, the convention could change, and the Queen take someone else's advice. But that would be a major constitutional change that would make today's relatively small development pale into insignificance.