How Theresa May's Ministerial Resignations Have Piled Up

(Bloomberg) -- Andrea Leadsom’s resignation on Wednesday brought to 36 the number of ministers who have left Prime Minister Theresa May’s government since the 2017 general election -- a rate of about 1 1/2 per month.

Some have left for health and family reasons, some due to scandal -- but the majority can be ascribed to Brexit, including Leadsom. She said May’s latest plans -- including offering Parliament the chance to vote for a second referendum -- didn’t deliver on the 2016 vote to leave the EU.

Here’s a rundown of the departures, which are in addition to those of a dozen more junior members of the government, known as parliamentary private secretaries.

May 22: Andrea Leadsom resigns as Leader of the House of Commons a day before the European elections, saying she couldn’t stand up in the chamber and announce Brexit legislation she didn’t agree with.

May 7: May’s office announces that Rona Fairhead has quit as a trade minister in the House of Lords, citing personal reasons.

May 1: May fires Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson after he refused to resign over a leak of secret discussions in Britain’s National Security Council about Huawei Technologies Co.’s role in Britain. He denied responsibility for the leak.

April 4: Nigel Adams and Chris Heaton-Harris quit their government posts after May seeks to delay Brexit further and find a compromise with the opposition Labour Party.

March 25: Alistair Burt, Richard Harrington and Steve Brine all resign as government ministers in order to support an amendment by Oliver Letwin giving Parliament the chance to hold non-binding votes to find a new Brexit compromise.

March 13: Disabilities Minister Sarah Newton quits in order to rebel against the government on a motion to prevent the U.K. to leave the EU without a deal.

Feb. 28: George Eustice resigns as agriculture minister after May said she’d let Parliament vote on delaying Brexit if they reject for a second time the deal she’s reached with the EU.

Jan. 14: Gareth Johnson quits as a government whip over Brexit policy.

Dec. 31: James O’Shaughnessy quits as a junior health minister in the House of Lords due to “family circumstances.”

Nov. 30, 2018: Science Minister Sam Gyimah -- a Remain supporter -- quits his post in opposition to Brexit policy. Under May’s deal, Britain had “surrendered our voice, our vote and our veto,” he said.

Nov. 15, 2018: Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, Brexit Minister Suella Braverman and Northern Ireland Minister Shailesh Vara all quit over May’s Brexit plans.

Nov. 9, 2018: Jo Johnson, the pro-European brother of arch-Brexiteer Boris, quits as transport minister, describing the government’s handling of Brexit as a “failure of British statecraft.”

Nov. 11, 2018: Sports Minister Tracey Crouch resigns, citing the delay in a clampdown on gambling machines. “Politicians come and go but principles stay with us forever," she says.

July 16, 2018: Junior Defense Minister Guto Bebb -- a pro-European -- quit in order to rebel against May’s post-Brexit customs plans.

July 13, 2018: Junior Business Minister Andrew Griffiths resigns after a sex-texting scandal.

July 8-9: Brexit Secretary David Davis and a junior minister in his department, Steve Baker, quit over May’s Brexit plans. They’re followed quickly by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who says the Brexit “dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”

June 21, 2018: Trade Minister Greg Hands resigns so he can oppose the expansion of Heathrow Airport.

June 12, 2018: Justice Minister Phillip Lee resigns over Brexit, calling Britain’s departure from the bloc “detrimental to the people we were elected to serve.”

April 29, 2018: Home Secretary Amber Rudd quits after “inadvertently” misleading lawmakers over the government’s immigration targets.

Jan. 8, 2018: Education Secretary Justine Greening quits during a Cabinet reshuffle - after rejecting an alternative post. On the same day, James Brokenshire quits as Northern Ireland Secretary due to ill health. He returned to the cabinet later in the year.

Dec. 21, 2017: May’s deputy, First Secretary of State Damian Green, quits after an official investigation found he’d made misleading statements about pornography on one of his parliamentary office computers.

Nov. 8, 2017: International Development Secretary Priti Patel resigns following secret meetings with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nov. 1, 2017: Defense Secretary Michael Fallon resigns following allegations of sexual harassment. “I accept that in the past I have fallen below the high standards that we require of the armed forces which I have the privilege to represent,” he says.

Oct. 27, 2017: Joyce Anelay, a Brexit minister in the House of Lords, resigns for health reasons.

Sep. 3, 2017: Mark Price, a trade minister in the House of Lords, steps down, saying he had always intended his time in government to be “time-limited.”

June 12, 2017: George Bridges, a Brexit minister in the House of Lords, quits his post four days after the vote.

June 10, 2017: Andrew Dunlop, a Scotland Minister in the House of Lords, quits two days after the general snap general election in which May lost her Commons majority.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas Penny

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