Dominic Grieve is angered by those who question his patriotism and says that there could yet be a second referendum, but only if the public demand one

Dominic Grieve is perplexed. “It’s rather extraordinary finding oneself called a rebel and a mutineer,” says the mild-mannered former attorney-general. He has never thought of himself as a disrupter. “I’m a conciliator,” he says. He wasn’t head boy but he was always well behaved at school and was at Oxford with Theresa May before studying for the bar. He doesn’t tweet or use Facebook, he drinks his tea out of a cup, has a Union flag in his immaculate office, rugs on the floor and finds Silk too racy, preferring Rumpole of the Bailey. “I’m an establishment figure,” he explains before apologising profusely for his cold, which he says he must have caught from Steve Baker, the Brexit minister.

This week, however, he has