British MPs cannot legally resign, so they take a sham Crown job instead
No member of the House of Commons is allowed to quit. Yet every one of them can leave whenever they like, by asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a ceremonial post such as Crown Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds. The office carries no duties at all and exists purely to make that exit possible.
The Commons has 650 seats, each tied to a single constituency and won under first-past-the-post. Every seat falls vacant at once when a general election arrives, either at the end of the five-year cycle or through a snap poll. Since the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, dissolution happens automatically five years after a Parliament first meets. Peers belong to a house of Parliament too, but nobody calls them MPs.
Mid-term vacancies are filled through by-elections. Death and resignation are the usual triggers, though not the only ones. A jail term longer than a year empties a seat automatically under the Representation of the People Act 1981, and since the Recall of MPs Act 2015 lesser misconduct can open a recall petition; once more than 10% of the constituency's registered voters sign, the member is out. Bankrupts cannot stand at all.
Eligibility is broad. Candidates must be 18 or older and hold British, Commonwealth or Irish citizenship, but they need not live in the seat or even be on the electoral roll. Property-owning men once had the field to themselves; women won the right both to stand and to vote in 1918. The House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 bars civil servants, serving police officers, regular soldiers and some judges, while special constables and reservists may run. Retired or resigned peers became eligible only with the House of Lords Reform Act 2014.
Then comes the question of whom an MP actually serves. The classic answer ranks the nation first, constituents second as people represented rather than instructed, and party a distant third. At voting time the order flips, because a strong whipping system decides how most members vote. Inside the chamber, members call each other 'honourable', and privy counsellors add 'Right Honourable'.
Source: Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)
