Conservative rebels said they felt “liberated” walking through the lobbies facing imminent deselection as they backed moves to stop no-deal Brexit, with several emphasising that the government’s threats had been the catalyst for their decisions.

Among the 21 rebels who lost the Conservative whip were eight former cabinet ministers, some of whom occupied the country’s highest offices just weeks ago, as well as multiple Conservative veterans including the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill.

The defiance of the rebel group has led some in government to question whether the nuclear strategy of threatening deselection and cancelling an earlier meeting with key former ministers had been the right move.

Q&A Who were the 21 rebel Tories? Show Hide Here is the list of the 21 Conservative MPs who voted with the opposition and against the government to seize control of the parliamentary timetable in order to pave the way for a bill to block a no-deal Brexit. They were then thrown out of the party by prime minister Boris Johnson. Guto Bebb, Aberconwy Richard Benyon, Newbury Steve Brine, Winchester Alistair Burt, North East Bedfordshire Greg Clark, Tunbridge Wells Kenneth Clarke, Rushcliffe David Gauke, South West Hertfordshire Justine Greening, Putney Dominic Grieve, Beaconsfield Sam Gyimah, East Surrey Philip Hammond, Runnymede and Weybridge Stephen Hammond, Wimbledon Richard Harrington, Watford Margot James, Stourbridge Sir Oliver Letwin, West Dorset Anne Milton, Guildford Caroline Nokes, Romsey and Southampton North Antoinette Sandbach, Eddisbury Sir Nicholas Soames, Mid Sussex Rory Stewart, Penrith and The Border Edward Vaizey, Wantage



In the immediate aftermath of the rebellion, the business secretary, Andrea Leadsom, said there was a possibility of a reprieve if MPs reconsidered and voted against the bill expected to be tabled on Wednesday.

That peace offering was contradicted within an hour by a Downing Street spokesman. “The chief whip is speaking to those Tory MPs who did not vote with the government this evening. They will have the Tory whip removed.”

Ed Vaizey, the former culture minister who had kept his intentions secret until the vote, said he felt liberated by his decision to rebel. “When you hear those speeches in the House of Commons by Antoinette Sandbach and Ken Clarke, you just know you are on the right side,” he said.

No 10 attempted a round of last-minute diplomacy ahead of the crunch vote, including convening a meeting with senior rebels such as Philip Hammond and David Gauke in Downing Street.

Several waverers were approached personally by the prime minister – with one MP saying they had received two phone calls from Johnson just minutes before the vote. Some senior Conservatives appeared stunned at the extent of the rebellion, with cabinet ministers approaching MPs en route from the voting lobbies to ask if they had rebelled.

Some Conservatives have privately voiced serious concern about the future of the party and unease at removing the whip from such long-serving MPs.

On Tuesday a number of the party’s leading centrist voices, including Justine Greening, Nicholas Soames and Alistair Burt, announced they would stand down at the next election, and the former justice minister Phillip Lee defected to the Lib Dems, with most saying they saw no future in the party and condemning its direction under Johnson.

Boris Johnson is threatening his own MPs, but I’ll be voting to stop no-deal Brexit | Sam Gyimah Read more

Rory Stewart, the former international development secretary, also joked as he won GQ’s politician of the year that it came on the night he had ceased to be a politician.

“If anything, those threats have made it more difficult for MPs to back down, because if you decide to back the government in that circumstance, you are effectively saying you value your career over your principles,” one MP said.

Sam Gyimah, the former universities minister, wrote in the Guardian: “For MPs like myself, Downing Street has framed the choice as: speak your mind or keep your job.”

MPs who rebelled included former cabinet ministers Philip Hammond, Greg Clark, David Gauke, Caroline Nokes, Stewart and Greening.

Many more were former ministers including Steve Brine, Stephen Hammond, Anne Milton, Margot James, Guto Bebb, Dominic Grieve, Sam Gyimah, Richard Harrington, Oliver Letwin, as well as backbencher Antoinette Sandbach and Tory veterans Ken Clarke and Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill.

Soames was among several Tory veterans who were deeply torn on whether to rebel after a fraught meeting with the prime minister on Tuesday, but he said he would rebel “with a very heavy heart” because he believed there was no chance to get a deal by October. Afterwards he confirmed he would not stand at the next election.

Announcing her decision to quit parliament at the election, Greening said it had become “clear to me that my concerns about the Conservative party becoming the Brexit party have come to pass”.

Burt, one of the key sponsors of the rebel bill, said he had a “fundamental and unresolvable disagreement with party leadership on the manner in which we leave the EU”.

Stephen Hammond said he had hoped for reassurance from the government but had decided to reluctantly vote against the government.

“It’s a very emotional time for a lot of us, I’ve been agonising over it, I believe in everything this prime minister is doing pretty much, but I have said time after time that I would support a deal … but no deal is not acceptable,” he said.

Philip Hammond and Johnson went head to head in a furious meeting of the rebels in Downing Street, shortly after the former chancellor told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was gearing up for the “fight of a lifetime”, including preparing to take the Conservative party to court if Johnson deselected him as a candidate.

Play Video 1:30 Philip Hammond preparing for a political 'fight of a lifetime' – video

The last-ditch meeting, which included Hammond, Clark, James, Soames, Burt and Milton, was convened by Johnson at No 10 on Tuesday morning in an attempt to convince waverers about the implications of the bill and the negotiation progress.

A source close to the rebel group said the prime minister’s explanation was “unconvincing” about how a deal could be ratified, legally drafted, and legislated in the very short timeframe when parliament is not prorogued.

Downing Street sources said officials had hit back at Hammond, saying he had been advised when he was in cabinet that the process could be done in as little as 17 days.

However, several Tory MPs were also left concerned that there was no new information provided on how an alternative to the backstop had been devised and whether it had been provided to the EU, despite contributions in the meetings by Johnson’s EU negotiator, David Frost, who insisted the government was seeing movement on the Irish side.

The culture secretary, Nicky Morgan, who has been sceptical about no deal, also told MPs they would have time to act before the deadline.

One government official said there had been a “genuine breadth of opinion in the room … some wanted to be convinced that a deal is possible and the prime minister made clear that the deal before the House will wreck that chance.”

However, one rebel source said that assertion was challenged and that “no convincing proof was given that a real negotiation is taking place”.

The source also called it “a deliberate and willing misinterpretation” of the bill to suggest it would hand power to Jeremy Corbyn, saying it gave the government “maximum flexibility to achieve a deal”.

In a direct exchange with the prime minister, Hammond said rebels did not believe there was a serious negotiating strategy or team in place, or that the government would keep its word about the election date, a concern that one official likened to “a conspiracy theory”.

Hammond also challenged Johnson on his claim that the EU can apply conditions to any extension. “Philip made the point that the EU cannot – according to law, and to conversations he had with EU officials when he was in office,” one source said.

In turn, Johnson and Michael Gove argued that the bill as it stood could lead only to indefinite uncertainty, suggesting it would inevitably result in a second referendum or the revoking of article 50, which rebel Tories have claimed they do not want.