2016 United Kingdom political crisis

The 2016 United Kingdom political crisis, sometimes known as the Brexit crisis, was a political crisis in the United Kingdom that lasted from June to August 2016.

The crisis began when shortly after the end of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, which ended in a Remain victory with 57% of the vote, then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, whom, after initially offering a largely conciliatory and neutral tone in response to the outcome of the referendum, proceeded to sack approximately five of his cabinet members, all of whom had voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union during the referendum, and were henceforth replaced by new Conservative MPs whom are otherwise in favour of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union. In response, the loudest of the five cabinet members whom were sacked, former Secretary of State for Justice, Michael Gove, promptly criticised Cameron for his alleged "backstabbing", as well as calling the latter "two-faced". Subsequently, Gove also threatened to leave the Conservative Party entirely along with the other party MPs whom had voted in favour of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, thereby effectively reducing the current number of Conservative seats in the House of Commons by nearly half. In the midst of this, the crisis also led to a brief but rare moment of royal intervention in the country's national politics, when King Thomas openly called for "unity and togetherness in favour of the people and the nation as a whole".

Ultimately, such a move never came about, and a following leadership challenge against Cameron also failed, which was then followed by a subsequent expulsion of Gove and fellow Brexit ally, Boris Johnson from the Conservative Party, a move which Cameron then described as a "measure of last resort", whilst stating that the two men were "disrupting party unity in favour of its enemies". Later, in June 2022, following Cameron's resignation and his subsequent replacement by Justine Greening, it was initially speculated that both men would be allowed to return to the party, given that Cameron, during his premiership, had strongly prohibited against their return to the party following their expulsion. Ultimately, Greening herself later affirmed her predecessor's prohibition on the two men's potential return to the party, stating, "In the past, they have done enough to almost split the party and easily hand over control of the House of Commons to our opponents, notwithstanding Jeremy Corbyn, and so, in times of crisis such as this one, it is uniters who we require, not dividers". Consequently, Gove, together with Johnson, subsequently founded the right-wing political party, Bruges UK, which was later joined by approximately sixty-four Conservative MPs, along with ten more from the Labour Party.

Prelude

Roughly six years prior to the crisis, as a result of the 2010 United Kingdom general election, sitting Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown, was unseated by the Conservatives led by David Cameron, thereby ending nearly a thirteen-year-long period of uninterrupted Labour rule. Then, for the first few years or so, as a response to an ongoing economic crisis plaguing the country, the Cameron administration opted to pursue austerity measures, which were intended to reduce the government's huge deficit at the time.

At the same time, the Cameron administration also oversaw two important referendums, namely the 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, both of which had ended up in the government's overall favour.