Change UK announced that it now had just five MPs, who will be led by the former Conservative business minister and anti-Brexit campaigner Anna Soubry.

The others remaining are the former Labour MPs Mike Gapes, Chris Leslie, Joan Ryan and Ann Coffey. In their statement, they said they would embark on a "nationwide programme of deliberative democracy", across the UK.

[Heidi] Allen and [Chukka] Umunna have both been advocating closer cooperation with Vince Cable's party. Some of their erstwhile colleagues suspect they may have been offered plum seats, or the backing of Lib Dem activists in their existing constituency, if they defect.

The other four MPs to quit the party were Luciana Berger, who fronted its slick press launch on London's South Bank in February, Gavin Shuker, who had spent months drawing up secret plans for the breakaway group, Sarah Wollaston and Angela Smith.

"If I were running it, we would have one leader and a different name and we would have done a deal with all the other remain parties. Then we would be able to give the Brexit party a fight."