Liberal Democrats MPs rebel

8.23.00am GMT Thu 6th Mar 2008

It would seem 15 Liberal Democrat MPs (different news websites are using different figures) rebelled yesterday and defied the Whip on abstaining on the Conservative amendment calling for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Three frontbenchers - Alistair Carmichael, Tim Farron, David Heath all resignedly from their positions.

I suspect this is the biggest ever rebellion for the Liberal Democrats and perhaps it would have been easier to allow a free-vote, after the Liberal Democrat preferred option failed on Tuesday.

The 'rebels' as far as I can tell were:

Annette Brooke (Dorset Mid & Poole North)

Alistair Carmichael (Orkney & Shetland)

Tim Farron (Westmorland & Lonsdale)

Andrew George (St Ives)

Sandra Gidley (Romsey)

Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South)

David Heath (Somerton & Frome)

John Hemming (Birmingham Yardley)

Paul Holmes (Chesterfield)

Martin Horwood (Cheltenham)

John Leech (Manchester Withington)

Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West)

John Pugh (Southport)

Mark Williams (Ceredigeon)

Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge)