Quote Originally Posted by noel View Post
Again, this is down to opinion. The WA did (and still does) allow the UK to leave the EU, it's just that those MPs didn't agree with aspects of it. You could say they were at the time thwarting the will of the people by voting against it - although I realise this is a stretch as they wanted a more Brexit-y Brexit than was on offer as part of the WA.
But the point was why the case of the ERG rebels is different from the Remainer rebels.

My defence of the Tory MP's who voted against the WA is that it didn't honour the Conservative's manifesto pledge. This was firstly to leave the Single Market - the WA keeps us closely aligned with EU rules and maintains the supremacy of the ECJ in a number of areas. Secondly the pledge was to leave the Customs Union. As we all know, under the WA we cannot leave the Customs Union without the EU's permission because of the backstop. The deal was Brexit in name only.

I made the distinction with the more recent Tory rebels because they have voted explicitly against their party's manifesto pledges.

So that's why I think the rebellion of the latter is of a different magnitude to that of the former.