Some rituals are never meant to be seen. So jealously guarded is the air in which these ceremonies are conducted, only the lungs of initiates are permitted to inhale it. None may breathe a word to the outside world. Perhaps the most famous such sacrament is the papal conclave: the congregation of cardinals that convenes in the Sistine Chapel whenever it is time to elect a new pope. The world has come to accept that the only whisper that will ever escape the tight-lipped confab is the skein of white smoke (or fumata bianca) it releases when it adjourns and burns the cardinals’ ballots, silently signalling that a selection has been made.

While awaiting the results on Tuesday night of a very different kind of momentous vote – whether the UK’s Parliament would accept Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal for withdrawing the country from the European Union – many around the world were surprised to discover just how secretive are the rites and conventions of the modern-day Palace of Westminster. It turns out that it too has esoteric customs kept from the untrained eyes of the public. Customs like the act of voting – which means walking. To vote on legislation, members do not cast ballots, tick boxes, press buttons, or pull levers. Instead, they merely stroll through one of two rooms, either the ‘Aye’ or the ‘No’ lobby, while the traffic through each is tallied.

Ordinarily, this curious custom is performed in privacy – publishing photos taken in these spaces is generally banned on security grounds. The outside world is none the wiser whether a given MP’s vote was delivered with a sprightly shuffle, a furtive lurch, or a splatter of mustard on his or her lapel. But these are not ordinary times. The matter at hand was the most fiercely debated issue in living memory. Patience with such outmoded traditions as secret strolls through ancient chambers to register one’s vote had begun to wear thin.