So who were the rebels, and what were they up to? The list of the men and women (but mostly men) shows a striking absence of certain usual suspects: no Nadine Dorries, no Peter Bone and no Greg Mullholland for the Lib Dems. But most were bloodied rebels – all but three of the 39 Coalition dissidents had rebelled before. Half were serial rebels, having defied the whip over ten times this Parliament. Some of them are borderline unwhippable like Philip Hollobone who has disagreed with the Tory party a total of 129 times over three years and Philip Davies who has done so 85 times.(Full details here from my colleagues at Nottspolitics)
Size (of the majority) matters. Anne Marie Morris has a majority of just 523, and Nigel Mills of 536. The demographics and marginality of Sarah Teather’s Brent Central seat (majority of 1,345) would have made voting in favour of the motion very difficult.
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