Will the traditional parliamentary party system survive the upheaval Brexit has caused? Chris Moncrieff examines the crisis besetting Parliament.

What a carve-up! Labour, at the time of writing, has already suffered no fewer than nine defections from its ranks, while the equivalent tally in the Conservative Party is three. And there are expectations that more defectors will follow over the coming days and weeks.

The three Tories are all exasperated over the Brexit negotiations, while in Labour, the quitters have acted either over Brexit, antisemitism, or general dissatisfaction with the party leadership.

But whatever the reasons for their defections, the old virtue of loyalty to the party seems now to be, sadly, a thing of the past. The Brexit complainants say that loyalty to the country is more important than party loyalty.

That may be so, but let it not be forgotten that some of them have broken a solemn pledge given at the time of the referendum that they would honour the result whatever the outcome. That is, quite frankly, a disgrace.

Why can't they take a leaf out of the Prime Minister's book? She voted Remain in the referendum, but has honourably and conscientiously stuck to that original pledge.

And the idea of a second referendum, or People's Vote as they pompously describe it, is simply an insult. It is what the EU has been guilty of over the years: Holding elections in various member states, and if they get the "wrong" result they hold another until they get the "right" one. Shameful.

And I stick to my point that all the party deserters should resign from Parliament and trigger by-elections. One of their number offered the excuse that this is not the time for by-elections. How feeble. It is always time for by-elections if MPs decide to change their party status midway through a Parliament.

What was worse is that some members of the new Independent Group took their seats in the Chamber as if if it was some kind of fiesta.

Words fail me.

*Do not be surprised if Dame Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool Riverside, becomes the next Labour Member to defect from the party. She would do so over Labour's alleged antisemitism stance.

Jeremy Corbyn, who presumably wants to keep his party together, did himself no good for allegedly and sarcastically describing Dame Louise as "the MP for Tel Aviv".

She once spent a highly productive period as chair of the powerful Commons Transport Committee, which regularly reached highly critical findings when probing controversial issues.

She was never afraid to publicly criticise her own party leaders if she thought they were at fault.

But recently, her main concern has been her detestation at the apparent antisemitism rampant in the party. It now appears that one of Corbyn's closest political aides is a strongly pro-Palestine individual.

It is therefore no surprise that Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, has warned Corbyn that he has virtually no chance of reaching Number Ten unless he totally eradicates antisemitism from the party. How Corbyn can expect decent Jewish people like Louise Ellman to remain in the party when it is in such a sorry state is beyond me.

*Labour MP Paul Flynn, one of the hardest-working of Members at Westminster, has just died. He was a left winger, but by no means in the same mould as the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Indeed, once during his brief membership of the shadow Cabinet, Flynn had the temerity to say to Corbyn to his face: "Thank you for appointing me - but you are the wrong person to be leading the Labour Party." Needless to say, that remark did not win him a standing ovation.

Flynn was a prolific and highly readable blogger and indefatigable and persistent campaigner. He was often a thorn in the side of his own leader, and was Labour through and through. "We were Labour as naturally as we were Catholics or Welsh."

Paul Flynn was brilliant as a probing back-bencher and, in my view, his talents would have been wasted if he had spent his time at Westminster on the Front Bench. He was the salt of the political earth.

*I am not surprised that former Prime Minister David Cameron made a heartfelt, passionate (but unsuccessful) plea to the three Tory women MPs who deserted the party last week. They simply ignored him. After all, he must surely still experience at least a smidgen of guilt, not to say conscience, over the last two and a half years of Brexit chaos.

Cameron was the one who initiated the fateful Brexit referendum, which, no doubt to his shock, returned a substantial majority of people who wanted to quit the European Union. He could hardly believe the figures when he was confronted with them .

He had plainly assumed the voters would return a handsome majority to stay within the EU - his preferred choice. It is a rule that as in journalism, so in politics, too, you never assume anything.

Cameron retired into semi-obscurity, leaving it to Theresa May to sort out the ensuing mess. He is the only ex-Prime Minister who has not been voluble about Brexit after the last two chaotic years. And that's hardly a surprise.