WHAT a bad-tempered place Westminster has become these days, with Tory MP Dominic Grieve accusing colleagues of making “blood-curdling threats” against rebels and Labour members bellowing at veteran anti-poverty campaigner and party father figure Frank Field.

Perhaps the mood in the Commons informed the First Minister’s approach to her meeting with Theresa May, which Ms Sturgeon, to general surprise, later described as “cordial”. Oh dear. It is when they start being nice to you that a PM should begin to worry.

Good old-fashioned fury is all the rage when it comes to those Conservative MPs who oppose the Government’s move to enshrine the Brexit time and date of 23.00 GMT on 29 March 2019 in law. The Tory rebels were pictured yesterday on the front page of The Daily Telegraph under the headline “The Brexit mutineers”. One can only imagine the frustration caused by the headline, “Enemies of the people” having been previously used elsewhere. Never mind chaps, there are plenty more fine front pages still to be had, including one featuring a harried Theresa May under the headline: “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it infamy.” (Apologies to Carry On Cleo.) There they stood, dressed in 50 shades of Conservative blue, looking like an ad for the world’s worst dating agency. Smiling for the camera in happier times, their collective presence begged several questions. One, how much do you fancy their chances of defeating the government? Two, to what extent are these enemies of hard Brexiters the Remainers’ friends? Three, should Scotland be cheering them on?

Applause mixed with cheers greeted the speech by Ken Clarke, one of the rebel 15, as the Commons debated the EU Withdrawal Bill. In common with others, the former minister, now Father of the House, argued that the Government amendment on the Brexit date was unnecessary, ridiculous, and could be “positively harmful” to securing a good deal. Deprived of that last minute, hour, day, week, to negotiate, the rebels argue, the UK could be forced to walk away with a half-baked deal. Parliament would have the right, under another Government amendment, to reject such a deal, but Brexit would still go ahead regardless, and deal-less.

One does not need Mr Clarke’s 47 years’ experience as an MP to see that what the Government is offering here is a “heads we win, tails the Remainers lose” arrangement. Whatever happens the UK will be out the door that day. No ifs, buts, or extensions, just out, out, out.

As a response to perfectly reasonable criticism, the Government amendment on a Brexit date is completely over the top. It is a piece of showmanship designed to rally the hard Brexit troops, the kind of thing that might have sprung from the imaginations of Messrs Johnson and Gove, the Barnum and Bailey of Brexit. Roll up, roll up, and watch the fearless duo throw not one but two buckets of water (they’ve gone beyond confetti) in the faces of Remainers! Watch them fly though the air with the greatest of ease, leaping from negotiations to Brexit with no safety net below! Thrill as they pile into a getaway car complete with wheels that may or may not fall off shortly after!

While intended as a show of strength, what such actions really betray is weakness and fear.

The same thought arose while reading the letter Mr Gove and Mr Johnson sent recently to Theresa May, as revealed this week by the Mail on Sunday. Speak softly and carry a big stick was Theodore Roosevelt’s advice on foreign policy. The Gove-Johnson letter was more a “shove a snotty note through the neighbour’s door and run away” affair. It is not the kind of thing grown-ups should do.

The vote on enshrining the Brexit date in law will not take place till next month. There is time yet for tempers to cool and arms to be twisted. Mr Gove tweeted his support yesterday when Brexit Minister Steve Baker, referring to the Telegraph front page, said he regretted “any media attempts to divide our party”. At PMQs yesterday the Tory benches were in full pom-pom waving mode for their leader. Moreover, as Frank Field’s intervention showed a day earlier, there are rebels within Labour ranks as well. The cards and votes may fall favourably for the Prime Minister, with the great Brexit date rebellion fizzling out like all the rest.

But if it does not? Well, then we enter strange territory indeed. The kind of stark, no-longer twilight zone in which a government falls and a General Election is called. That would certainly account for the height at which some feelings are running. In normal times, rebels might take into account how their constituencies voted, and the size of their majorities, in deciding how to act. After that, it comes down to their sacred (to MPs anyway) right to follow their principles.

But these are far from normal times. Given that the rebels, save for Mr Clarke, accept that the UK is leaving the EU, why would they risk a General Election that could throw this into jeopardy? There are worse things than being called mutineers, and the Tory rebels will be called every last one of them, not least by their own constituency associations, should the Government fall.

What of those outside the Conservative Party who would cheer the rebels on in the hope that they succeed, by accident or design, in kicking Brexit into the long grass?

If that happens, is there an answer ready when those 17,410,742 people who voted to Leave ask why they bothered? Certainly, the never-say-die Remainers have their arguments lined up, from “The electorate did not have all the facts” to “Well, Scotland voted to Remain anyway”. But none of them seems enough when faced with the stark fact that a democratic vote would be being overturned so soon after it took place. Is that a mutiny or a betrayal?

Mrs May issued something of a Beatles appeal yesterday in saying she hoped MPs can “come together” to deliver on the decision that the country had taken. If they cannot, it could soon be hello, goodbye from her.