Remilitarization of the Rhineland 1935. On 7 June 1935, MacDonald resigned as British Prime Minister due to ailing health and was replaced by Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party; the leadership change did not affect British foreign policy in any meaningful way. On October 3, 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia, and thus began the Abyssinia Crisis. Under strong pressure from a moralistic British public opinion, which was very much in favor of collective security, the British government took the lead in pressing the League of Nations for sanctions against Italy. The decision of the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to take a strong line in
Stanley Baldwin a motion of confidence vote. He resigned immediately. Baldwin successfully held on to the party leadership amid some colleagues' calls for his resignation. For the next ten months, an unstable minority Labour government under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald held office. On 13 March 1924, the Labour government was defeated for the first time in the Commons, although the Conservatives decided to vote with Labour later that day against the Liberals. During a debate on the naval estimates the Conservatives opposed Labour but supported them on 18 March in a vote on cutting expenditure on the Singapore military base. Baldwin also