The Maastricht Rebels were British Members of Parliament (MPs) belonging to the then governing Conservative Party who refused to support the government of Prime Minister John Major in a series of votes in the House of Commons on the issue of the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty in British law.
Stephen Twigg is a British Labour Co-op politician who has served as the 8th Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association since August 2020. He served as Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate from 1997 to 2005, and for Liverpool West Derby from 2010 to 2019.
Janet Anderson was a British politician from the Labour Party. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Rossendale and Darwen from 1992 until 2010, when she lost her seat. She was the Minister for Tourism from 1998 to 2001, a period which included the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak. In the 2009 United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, she was found to have claimed costs for journeys she had not made.
Alistair James Hendrie Burt is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Bedfordshire from 2001 until 2019. He was previously MP for his native Bury North in Greater Manchester from 1983 until 1997. Burt was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State then Minister of State at the Department of Social Security from 1992 to 1997, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 2010 to 2013. Burt was also Minister of State at the Department of Health from May 2015 to July 2016.
Robert Nelson Wareing was a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Liverpool West Derby from 1983 to 2010. Until 2007, he was a Labour MP but resigned the party whip following his deselection as the party's candidate for his constituency.
Ronald Campbell is a former British Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Blyth Valley from 1987 until 2019.
Albert Owen is a Welsh Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Ynys Môn from 2001 to 2019. He took the seat in the 2001 election from Plaid Cymru with a margin of exactly eight hundred votes and retained the seat at the four subsequent general elections. During his time in Parliament, he was a member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee, Welsh Affairs Select Committee and the International Development Committee. He was also a member of the Speaker's Panel of Chairs and vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer.
Roger Duncan Godsiff is a British former politician who served as the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) from 1992 to 2019, for the seats of Birmingham Small Heath, Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath, and Birmingham Hall Green.
Christopher Michael Leslie is a debt collection executive and a former British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Shipley from 1997 to 2005 and Nottingham East from 2010 to 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, he defected to form Change UK and later became an independent politician.
Sir Richard Charles Scrimgeour Shepherd was a British politician who was Member of Parliament for Aldridge-Brownhills from 1979 to 2015. A Eurosceptic, Shepherd was one of the Maastricht Rebels that had the whip withdrawn over opposition to Prime Minister John Major's legislation on the European Union. Shepherd was also a libertarian Conservative, and had a three line whip imposed against him by Margaret Thatcher when he introduced an amendment to loosen the Official Secrets Act 1911.
James Patrick Dowd is a former British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1992 to 2017, first for Lewisham West and following 2010 for Lewisham West and Penge. He stood down at the 2017 general election, following the announcement of Prime Minister Theresa May's snap election in June 2017.
Stephen William Hammond is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wimbledon since 2005. He is a member of the Conservative Party.
Sir Michael Alan Penning is a British Conservative Party politician, who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hemel Hempstead since 2005.
Peter William Bone is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wellingborough since 2005. A member of the Conservative Party, he sits as an independent in the House of Commons having had the whip suspended on 17 October 2023. He campaigned for Brexit in the EU referendum and was part of the political advisory board of Leave Means Leave. From July to September 2022, he served as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons.
Heather Kay Wheeler is a British Conservative Party politician, who was first elected at the 2010 general election as the member of Parliament (MP) for South Derbyshire, taking the seat from the Labour Party after 13 years.
Craig Whittaker is a British politician who served as Government Deputy Chief Whip and Treasurer of the Household from September to October 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he previously served as a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from January 2018 to April 2019 and again from July to September 2022. Whittaker was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Calder Valley in 2010. He retained the seat in the 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections.
On 3 September 2019, the British Conservative Party withdrew the whip from 21 of its MPs who had supported an emergency motion to allow the House of Commons to undertake proceedings on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill on 4 September. In the hours after the vote, the Chief Whip Mark Spencer informed the rebel MPs that they were no longer entitled to sit as Conservatives. This led to the loss of the Conservative/DUP majority in the Commons.
