"Traitor!...Liar!...Betrayal!...Dictator!”. We've all been talking recently about how the rancid, ad hominem style of social media has infected political debate. Well, last week, parliament went the full nine yards. The Commons became Twitter in microcosm. A poisonous pit of invective and emotion.

Some pundits were saying that this unrestrained, aggressive style of political debate began with the 2014 Scottish referendum. But the Indyref was never like this. There may have been a deal of bad language and anger on the fringes of the internet, where Yoons and Cybernats clashed by night, but never in parliament.

The Commons went slightly mad last week, with hysterical finger pointing, tears and shouting. It was like a class of unruly school-kids in the middle of a sugar rush. Please miss: he called me a liar. No, I didn't. Yes, you did. Well, you started it by calling me a traitor. Miss! Miss! Only there was no one able to control this rowdy collection of over-wrought political egos, least of all the Speaker.

So, who did start it? Well, Boris Johnson by deploying his rebarbative, war-time rhetoric. Calling the Benn Act the “Surrender Act”. Accusing MPs of being “traitors”, “betraying” the people. It was demeaning, even for him. But I'm not going to apportion blame exclusively to the Prime Minister. Everyone has lost the plot over Brexit – not least Labour MPs, who repeatedly accuse Johnson of being a “racist”and a “tin pot dictator” staging a “coup”.

Why did the Labour MP Paula Sherriff think it wise to invoke the murdered MP, Jo Cox, in this cauldron of bile? It was a crude attempt to link Boris Johnson's “surrender” rhetoric, the far right, and a racist murder, as if he were somehow morally responsible. Johnson didn't help by responding that the “best way to honour Jo Cox would be to get Brexit done”. That was patently absurd, tasteless and inappropriate.

But the reaction was even more hysterical. You'd have thought he'd actually called for more MPs to be murdered. The Labour MP Jess Phillips accosted the Prime Minister in the lobby, demanding that he apologise for saying it was "humbug” to claim that his use of “Surrender Act” was an incitement to violence. Really? Apologise for using the word “humbug”?

This is how stupid, tangential rows erupt on social media – where everyone you disagree with becomes a fascist, and people get drunk on synthetic outrage. They all need to get a grip; dial down the rhetoric; stop playing to the Twitter gallery.

I'm tempted to suggest calling Lady Hale, the Spider Woman, along to sort this mess out. The 74-year-old president of the Supreme Court became an unlikely superhero last week after she unprorogued parliament and ruled that the PM had acted unlawfully. But she's a judge, who lives in the rarefied atmosphere of the Inns of Court, not the Commons bear pit.

We don't yet know the full implications of last week's Supreme Court ruling, except that they will profound. It amounted to, as the former Supreme Court judge, Lord Sumption, put it: “a revolution”. This is because the court ruled on whether the government had acted with “reasonable justification” in suspending parliament for five weeks. It may sound odd, but no one has expected governments to behave reasonably before.

The English High Court had earlier ruled that the courts had no right to get involved in policy, and that was what most people believed. But if judges are going to get involved in detailed political decision-making, then the Supreme Court will itself become politicised. It already is. There are calls for its judges to be subject to political vetting, as in America.

Labour MPs and supporters were jubilant after Lady Hales' ruling. But they may not be celebrating when Labour are next in government. They may find courts questioning policies like nationalisation and the abolition of private schools. Radical parties of the Left generally have more to fear from judicial activism than Conservatives. As do nationalists. Look at Catalonia, where politicians really are in jail because the Spanish supreme court ruled an independence referendum illegal. Couldn't happen here? I'm beginning to wonder.

But that's all for the future. The immediate problem is how this wretched Brexit crisis is to be resolved before real warfare breaks out. We should be thankful, perhaps, that the only punches thrown so far have been verbal ones. We haven't yet had any Gilet Jaunes-style civil disobedience and rioting. But the country is on a knife edge and it is the duty of parliament to deal with this crisis, not become part of it.

The Prime Minister has a majority of minus 45, has behaved unlawfully, and is refusing to honour the Benn Act, which requires him to ask for a third extension of Article 50. Former PM John Major has warned that Mr Johnson might resort to jiggery pokery in the Privy Council to overturn the Benn Act. He is anyway refusing to sign what he calls the “surrender” letter to Brussels.

The rebel alliance, led by the brilliant SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC (surely the next SNP leader-in-waiting) have their own solution. Cherry has filed a legal challenge under what is called “Nobile Officium” – a legal device that allows the Court of Session in Edinburgh to sign and send the letter to Brussels on the Prime Minister's behalf.

There's nothing like it in English law. So why would a Scottish court interfere? Well, as it happens, rulings of Scottish courts apply across the entire UK, as a consequence of the Act of Union. The Government could appeal, of course, and the matter could end up back in the Supreme Court. Lady Hale is no doubt sharpening her quill pen as we speak.

Nobile Officium is ingenious, but it would surely be all Dominic Cum-mings' Christmases coming at once. The idea of Scottish judges signing away British sovereignty, as he might put it, and reversing the Brexit referendum, as he would also put it, would be an ideal curtain-raiser for a General Election. The people versus the Establishment.

It would also get Boris Johnson off the hook of having to actually sign the “surrender” missive. Instead, he might just make clear to the European Union, that he will not cooperate. He will not appoint a British EU Commissioner, will not discuss the financial implications, will empty-chair summits. Parliament can force Boris Johnson to ask for an extension, but it can't force him to do so in good faith.

MPs have one obvious solution: which is to get rid of him by a vote of No Confidence. Put this zombie administration out of its misery. This wouldn't mean that Boris gets to call his early General Election, as many people seem to believe. The Commons has 14 days to chose a caretaker administration, and negotiate the extension themselves. But MPs can't seem to agree even on this.

It is partly because the parties are hopelessly divided over Brexit – having voted against May's deal, a referendum, or revoking A50, the lot. But they must take back control, if they want to be sure of avoiding a No Deal Brexit. Judges can't do it. Parliament can't do it. Only a government can conduct negotiations with foreign powers. MPs have the power to replace Boris Johnson tomorrow. It's time.