2016 United Kingdom political crisis

The 2016 United Kingdom political crisis, sometimes knkwnas 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 te 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, which Cameron then described as a "measure of last resort", stating that the two men were "disrupting party unity in favour of its enemies".