Back me or I will sack you, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told his own Members of Parliament ahead of the vote in parliament on Tuesday night and 21 were effectively fired including two former chancellors and the grandson of Conservative great, Winston Churchill.
If former Prime Minister Theresa May had taken similar action, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg would have lost their job months ago.
The bully-boy tactics of Johnson failed because the 21 stayed true to their beliefs and voted for legisilations which will effectively block a no-deal Brexit.
This took plenty of courage and they should be applauded because they put their beliefs ahead of their personal interests. They even put their party behind their beliefs.
This is democracy at work and it doesn´t say much for the Prime Minister who was a thorn in the side of former leaders Theresa May and to a lesser extent David Cameron but still kept his job and was able to get the top post in government.
I wish there was more courage of the type shown by the so-called rebels in British politics especially at the moment when clear leadership is needed more than ever.
The Conservative Party was split over Brexit but these splits are even more evident now because Johnson has lost 21 Members of Parliament, many of whom have been in the Conservative Party for longer than he has.
These are dark times in British politics but there are still some sparks of real valour.