CMR

• Collective Ministerial Responsibility

  • Govt decisions taken collectively
  • Ministers who can't support govt resign
  • PM can suspend CMR (flexible)
  • Brexit circumstances unlikely to be repeated
• Reasons why CMR is ineffective

  • Convention
  • Johnson people resigned but he didn't resign, not effective didn't apply pressure to him
  • Brexit/Cameron suspended CMR as people within parties disagreed, everyone disagreeing not resigning, people voting against May, 2019 8 voting against govt vote for extension to article 50 most remained in post
  • Coalition wasn't possible to hv CMR with two parties in govt
  • Big Beast ministers above CMR, BoJo as T Mays Foreign secretary wrote critical articles, she couldn't sack him
  • May resided over more resignations in her 3 years than Blair in his 10, unprecedented pace and extent of resignation
  • Cabinet regularly broke the line, the government ordered Cabinet members to abstain from key votes in March 2019 because they feared it would split the party
• Instances of CMR


  • Chancellor R. Sunak & Health sec S. Javid disagreed over plans to remove free test kits, both supported P in public
  • 57 ministers resigned in 2022 after BoJo appointing someone with sexual misconduct allegations to govt
  • Michael Gove campaigned for Leave EU
  • Sunak dismissed Home sec Suella Braverman after challenging authority and labelling Palestine protests 'hate-marches', brought in ex-PM Cameron as foreign secretary
  • Boris Johnson resigned as foreign secretary as he disagreed with the government's 'Chequers deal' for leaving the European Union, kept clear govt position, originall appointed to keep in line
  • Lib-Dems supported many Tory polices under coalition so govt kept strong image, university fees raised
  • 2024 tory mp Paul Birstow sacked as parl private secretary (still BB) over calling Gaza ceasifire