Yesterday afternoon, the Conservative working majority in the UK House of Commons shifted to zero, as Tory MP Phillip Lee crossed to the opposition benches to become a Liberal Democrat. Later that evening their majority dropped further — to negative forty-three, as twenty-one Tory MPs were expelled for voting against the government to advance a bill that would potentially block crashing out of the European Union with No Deal on October 31.

On the night of the vote, criticism of the Tories focused heavily on the symbolic affront of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s physical posture on the front bench: slouched almost horizontally, taking up as much space as possible now that there was more free space on the government benches than the opposition’s side.

By proroguing Parliament and limiting the amount of time available to debate motions aimed at delaying the United Kingdom’s EU exit, the Conservatives assumed they would be making their job a little easier. The opposition, and some of their own MPs, didn’t make it so. To stop Tories from rebelling, backbenchers were threatened with expulsion and the promise that they could not stand for the party at the next election, whenever that may be. The threat was supposed to force the MPs to fall into line, but failed abysmally: fear can make you backtrack, but mutual contempt is more likely to harden your resolve.