Philip Cowley writes: For the whips' office the arithmetic is fairly simple – and fairly depressing.
218 Labour MPs voted against (pdf) their whip during the last parliament. Now, many of these didn't do so very often, and might thus be argued to be amenable to a bit of arm-twisting and pressure when any vote gets tight. But 87 of them have more regular "form", having voted against the whips on 10 occasions or more.
Of these, 27 are no longer in the Commons and/or in receipt of the Labour whip: 16 retired, nine were defeated, one has died, and one, George Galloway, was expelled from the party.
This leaves 60 MPs with rebel form knocking around on the government backbenches. The most rebellious – Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Lynne Jones and Bob Marshall-Andrews – are fairly well known. But there are less well known Labour MP who are also prepared to take a stand.
Given Tony Blair's much reduced majority, it would only take just over half of these 60 to vote against the government to defeat it. Brace yourself. There are troubles ahead.
Philip Cowley is reader in parliamentary government at the University of Nottingham and runs www.revolts.co.uk.
