David Cameron must suspend ministerial collective responsibility – the EU is too necessary for any other course of actionLiam Fox’s intervention in the EU referendum debate has unleashed a great deal of speculation about how the Conservative leadership should handle the party in the run-up to the EU referendum. In specific,how should the prime minister handle the question of ministerial collective responsibility? The answer? Ministers should be free to speak. This is not a novel plan. It’s what happened in the 1975 referendum.“Ministerial collective responsibility” is a fine convention of our constitution, enshrined in precedent and, and in more recent decades,written into the ministerial code of conduct. It is the principle that whether you are a minister, you do not criticise the policies of your fellow ministers whenever you like. It is agreement to disagree in private and to accept in public there is only one government view. You work together, and you compromise. fairly a lot of the time,to sustain things orderly and to avoid distraction, you button your lip. You even say things you do not agree with. It just goes with the territory.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com