On This Day
26 June 1931
Sir John Simon, Sir Robert Hutchinson and Ernest Brown resign the Liberal whip
Their resignations followed Liberal confusion over the Labour government’s land tax proposals. The Liberal Chief Whip, Sir Archibald Sinclair, commented that the imposition of a land tax of a penny in the pound on capital values was scarcely a matter for resignation. However, Simon had been moving away from the Liberal Party and the land tax debacle offered a pretext to formalise a position that had been evident for several months.