Professor Tim Bale published an opinion piece for The Guardian on “Rees-Mogg’s ‘phantom army’ of Brexit fanatics.” He writes: “No one, then, should allow the recent failure of Messrs Rees-Mogg and Baker to muster the famous 48 letters required to trigger a no-confidence vote in May to fool them into thinking that Conservative Euro-fanatics are and always have been merely a phantom army. Sure, maybe once upon a time that was the case, and maybe they’ve never been quite as numerous as they, and their equally obsessive media cheerleaders, have liked to suggest.”