How the rebels plan to finish off Boris

The Tory party knows it has a problem with plotting. Of its last nine leaders, six have faced a leadership challenge of some sort. The current rules for removing a leader are designed to constrain the party’s appetite for regicide – no one can be challenged unless 15 per cent of the MPs write demanding a no-confidence vote, and the incumbent benefits from a second layer of protection: win, and they can’t be challenged again for a year.

The purpose of this year of grace is to ensure that rebels can’t keep coming back until they have finished off a wounded leader. But this being the Tory party, the rules are not set in stone. They are determined by the group of MPs who run the 1922 Committee of backbenchers. They can change them at a time of their choosing. Given how close Monday night’s vote was, rebels are already thinking about how they might engineer another in the next few months.