What do the Tory rebels want?

“The crypto-fascists are in charge”. So spoke one of the senior Tories planning to rebel tomorrow against Boris Johnson – which captures in its visceral anger the magnitude of the gulf between the new prime minister and those of his backbenchers who want a no-deal Brexit taken off the table.

This afternoon the Tory rebels will decide whether the threat from Johnson and his chief aide Dominic Cummings, to remove the Tory whip and to ban them from running as official Tory candidates in the looming general election, will dissuade them from tomorrow voting with Labour, the SNP, the Greens and Plaid to seize control of what legislation is debated and enacted over the coming days (so that the rebels can pass a law that would compel the PM to ask the EU’s leaders for a six-month Brexit delay).

The 20ish Tories weighing whether to risk expulsion contain many heavyweights. In recent years they would have been seen as loyalists, the spine of May’s government.