Let's travel to a parallel universe for a second.

It's June 24 and Britain has voted by a small margin to remain in the European Union. David Cameron, looking a bit shaken after a result that was too close for comfort, but with a spring in his step heads out to address waiting journalists outside Number 10 with a promise to unite the nation.

There are cries of outrage from the leave side of the debate about the scare stories of the remain side, and claims the extension of the deadline to allow people to register to vote had robbed them of victory.

In this alternative sequence of events MPs return to the House of Commons and David Cameron works his way through a fairly uncontroversial legislative agenda set out in the Queen's Speech.

More broadband, modern transport. There might have been a bit of a parliamentary skirmish over the Investigatory Powers Bill (which incidentally passed without much controversy masked by Brexit).

MPs among the majority who backed the remain side would have ticked the Europe issue off the list for the next few years and responded to any letters pushing for either a second referendum with a response that it had been democratically settled and they respected the result of the vote.

Boris Johnson's standing among the eurosceptic wing of his party would have been bolstered after a close run campaign, and there would be no shortage of column inches devoted to a forthcoming leadership contest and who he would be up against when David Cameron stood down either before or at the next general election.

The party system and its whips would have been largely untroubled.

Or would they?

Certainly since the European Union referendum the scale of front bench resignations has accelerated to the point where we seem to have become almost immune to them.

So rare were they under governments of the last decades the big ones are still ingrained in the memory.

Sir Geoffrey Howe resignation as deputy prime minister from Margaret Thatcher's cabinet in 1990 was regarded as the most significant event which lead to Margaret Thatcher's own resignation.

Robin Cook's resignation on the eve of the Iraq War and Clare Short's resignation of the party whip are talked about long after they happened.

Yet the mass resignation of the shadow cabinet after the European Union referendum had little effect on Jeremy Corbyn.

More recently the departure of Jo Stevens, who stepped down as shadow Welsh secretary to defy the party whip over voting for Brexit, is unlikely to go down in history.

Of course, these are shadow roles. It is a graver matter to give up real power as a cabinet minister. But a front bench resignation used to be a big deal.

But it does seem to point to a trend of a more rebellious parliament. And it started before the European Union referendum.

The coalition parliament was one of the most rebellious in the post-war era.

This could be because our MPs are more diverse, and also a great deal more accessible, than they used to be.

There are more women and a greater number of people in both parties from a variety of backgrounds.

Almost all the MPs in our region are on Twitter and or Facebook, and they all have email addresses most of which are connected directly to their mobile phones.

It is much easier than it used to be to lobby them.

And with select committees becoming much more high profile there are other paths to follow on the career ladder than a ministerial post.

The likes of Sarah Wollaston, the outspoken chairman of the health select committee, is better known than many in junior government and shadow ministerial posts.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell are proof that being a serial rebel does no harm your chances of becoming leader one day.

But the European Union referendum has put a spotlight on this as MPs are being bombarded with letters from all sides about whether or not to vote to trigger Article 50.

Labour is in agony over the fact that their seats are among the most remain-supporting and the most leave-supporting in the country demonstrating what a polarising issue it is for them.

An increasingly rebellious group of MPs was starting to emerge long before the referendum. But the European Union has demonstrated the willingness to rebel more starkly.

Once the genie is out of the bottle it will be very hard to get it back in again.