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Theresa May Has Lost on Average More Than One Minister a Month

Theresa May Has Lost on Average More Than One Minister a Month

(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Theresa May lost two Cabinet ministers and two junior ones on Thursday, adding to a growing collection of disgruntled backbench Conservative lawmakers in the House of Commons.

Here’s a rundown of the 21 ministerial resignations since last year’s general election:

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

Nov. 9: 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: 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: Junior Defense Minister Guto Bebb -- a pro-European -- quit in order to rebel against May’s post-Brexit customs plans.

July 13: 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: Trade Minister Greg Hands resigns so he can oppose the expansion of Heathrow Airport.

June 12: 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: Home Secretary Amber Rudd quits after “inadvertently” misleading lawmakers over the government’s immigration targets.

Jan. 8: Education Secretary Justine Greening quits during a Cabinet reshuffle - after rejecting an alternative post.

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 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, Mark Williams

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.