This week a bunch of MPs resigned from the Labour party and announced they would henceforth sit in parliament as the Independent Group. Can one really be independent if one is part of a group? Let’s ask a pack of lone wolves.

To be “independent” might seem simple: you are not “dependent” (from the French for hanging off) on an external source of support or authority. But what exactly counts as such a source? No one is totally independent, for, as a 19th-century writer observed: “Animal life … is dependent on vegetable life, and vegetable life is dependent on the soil and atmosphere.” Nor can a modern human live entirely independently in society: as Bob Dylan put it, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.”

Whom do the Independent Group serve? The entity is currently not a party (like the now defunct Independent Labour party) but a private company whose funding remains obscure. According to UK electoral law, candidates may indicate a party affiliation, leave their description box blank, or use the word “independent”. At least we can be confident that any party formed in future by the Independent Group will not call itself the Independent party, because if you are Independent you cannot be independent after all.