You'd think, with raging epidemics of murder, stabbing and child rape, that the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) would have plenty to keep themselves busy without sticking their noses into politics. But no.

Last week NPCC chairman Martin Hewitt cautioned Brexit debaters to 'think carefully and be temperate in how we communicate so we don't inflame tensions'.

Hewitt's unwarranted intervention was of course aimed at Brexiteer critics of Remainer politicians, who've apparently taken offence at being called 'traitors'.

It's a harsh word, admittedly, but what better to describe MPs who side with foreign powers in order to confuse, undermine and overturn Brexit, who betray the biggest democratic mandate in British history, telling 17.4 million people that their vote to leave the European Union counts for nothing?

If not 'traitors', then what? Wreckers, saboteurs, plotters, backstabbers, double-crossers, scoundrels, liars, charlatans, betrayers, deceivers, collaborators, conspirators, enemies of democracy?

Take your pick.

The saboteurs have been encouraged and enabled by a weak Prime Minister whose heart was never in Brexit.

Like most of the political class, Theresa May regarded the referendum result as a terrible mistake by the British people, leaving it her duty to dilute and soften Brexit sufficiently to appease fellow Remainers.

Labour and Conservative MPs representing Brexit-voting constituencies double-crossed their constituents (the 'ignorant xenophobes' of Middle England) by abandoning manifesto pledges to honour the referendum result.

Britain humiliated

Today (Tuesday), Mrs May embarks on another supplicant tour of European capitals, pleading this time for an extension of Article 50 (the process for leaving the EU) beyond the April 12th deadline, to allow time to break the political deadlock.

Having thrice failed to win a House of Commons majority for her withdrawal agreement, or 'deal', she's now negotiating with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose backing could revive it.

Hard to credit, isn't it? The leader of the world's fifth largest economy going cap-in-hand to the bureaucrats of Brussels while her ministers (as ever, putting personal ambition before country) sustain her in power and squabble over future leadership of the Conservative Party.

Has there ever been a moment in history when Britannia was so lacking in confidence and ambition, so ready to prostrate herself before lesser nations?

No Deal IS Brexit

Though Mrs May is set against 'No Deal' - i.e. a swift, clean, no-ties break from the EU - that's precisely what the majority voted for in the 2016 referendum.

Not Brexit-in-name-only, not endless rule from Brussels, and not continuing membership of the Customs Union (one of Corbyn's likely conditions for supporting any deal), which International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has aptly described as:

… the worst of both worlds, not only unable to set our own international trade policy, but subject, without representation, to the policy of an entity over which MPs would have no democratic control.

No Deal IS Brexit - Brexit IS No Deal.

A ray of hope

European leaders have demanded that Mrs May produce 'a clear plan with credible political backing' in time for an emergency summit on Wednesday evening, if they're to consider extending Article 50.

Given her failure to produce a workable Brexit plan in nearly three years, this seems optimistic.

Moreover, any extension requires approval by all 27 EU member states, and France's President Macron (below, right) isn't keen: he believes Brexiteers will use it to make mayhem in the European Parliament. (A longish extension will mean Britain participating in this year's Euro elections, with scores of Eurosceptic candidates.)

How ironic it would be, if one of Europe's most fanatical globalists turned out to be Brexit's saviour!

Britain needs patriot politicians

The concerted effort by a few hundred scoundrel MPs to override the will of millions of voters starkly illustrates the present chasm between Parliament and the electorate.

Sooner rather than later, genuine patriots must replace the deceivers in Westminster and re-establish 'government of the people, by the people, for the people', as Abraham Lincoln famously put it in his Gettysburg Address.

Which is why Britain First's future lies in electoral politics.