Historic Commons defeat breaks records

MPs' rejection of the Withdrawal Agreement by 230 votes represents the largest government defeat on the floor of the House of Commons in modern political history.

It easily beats the previous record of 166 votes, which was set almost 100 years ago on October 8 1924 when the Ramsay MacDonald's minority Labour government of defeated by 364 to 198.

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The 1924 vote was on an amendment put forward by the Liberal Party to set up a select committee to investigate Labour’s decision to drop criminal proceedings against the editor of a Communist newspaper, which had recently published an article encouraging the armed forces to mutiny.

The result of the Brexit vote came close to breaking another record: the largest rebellion in modern British politics by MPs of a single party.

In Tuesday's vote, 118 Conservative MPs voted against the Withdrawal Agreement, 21 short of the largest ever revolt, which took place on March 18 2003, when 139 Labour MPs defied prime minister Tony Blair and voted against war in Iraq.

This remains the greatest revolt by MPs of any party since the repeal of the Corn Laws in the 1840s.

However the result of the Brexit vote does set a new record for the largest rebellion in modern times by Conservative members of parliament.

The 118 Tory MPs who voted against the Withdrawal Agreement is 23 higher than the previous record when 95 Conservative MPs rebelled against prime minister John Major in 1997 and voted against gun controls introduced in response to the Dunblane shooting.