A Speaker who’s a disgrace to his office

Brazenly biased towards May’s enemies and Remain, he’s the architect of many of the PM’s woes. No wonder one minister says John Bercow is...

ON MONDAY, as he left the Commons after Theresa May’s humiliating climbdown over the Brexit withdrawal deal, Jeremy Corbyn stopped by the Speaker’s chair.

To the astonishment of several onlookers, the Labour leader addressed its beaming occupant, John Bercow. ‘Thank you for all your help,’ he said.

The gushing praise confirmed the Tories’ worst fears: Bercow has abandoned all pretence of impartiality and is manipulating Commons procedures to undermine the Government on Brexit at every possible turn.

Minutes earlier, Bercow had accused Mrs May of being ‘deeply discourteous’ in pulling the ‘meaningful’ vote on the Government’s deal scheduled for that evening.

In an extraordinary reprimand directed at the PM, the Speaker urged ministers to put the decision to delay it to an MPs’ vote.

There was an immediate and icy reaction from Downing Street, with one source saying: ‘The Prime Minister has the authority to pull a vote. She leads the Government, not the Speaker.’

But last night, as rumours of a Tory leadership challenge spread through Westminster, there was little disagreement among his critics that the Speaker had played his part to perfection.

Arrogant, high-handed and calculatedly indiscreet, during his tenure Bercow has ridden roughshod over the centuries-old convention that Speakers stay scrupulously above the political fray.

When it comes to the EU, he’s never hesitated in making his allegiance known. Earlier this year, his car was spotted bearing a sticker which said ‘B ****** s to Brexit, it’s not a done deal’.

While addressing students at Reading University in 2017, he revealed he’d voted to Remain in the 2016 referendum, and hoped some EU rules, including equality laws, would continue after Brexit.

On immigration, a touchstone issue for many, he commented: ‘If you asked me if I think freedom of movement has been a positive, the honest answer is that it has been a positive, certainly for the country.’

Flouting

Bercow also attacked the ‘untruths’ told by Leavers during the campaign.

This is in direct contravention of the rules laid down in Erskine May, the parliamentary bible on procedure: ‘The Speaker is the chief officer and highest authority of the House of Commons and must remain politically impartial at all times .. therefore, on election the new Speaker must resign from their political party and remain separate from political issues, even in retirement.’

Flouting this edict again and again, Bercow has sided with the Labour Party and Tory Remainers. He has lined up with Brussels, the BBC and even France’s President Macron as a one-man Brexit wrecking ball.

During Monday’s debate on the withdrawal deal, Bercow selected MP after MP who were opposed to it, creating the impression that Mrs May was totally isolated.

He also took a lenient stance when the Labour MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, snatched the Parliamentary mace, a symbol of royal authority, from the Commons chamber in protest at the vote being deferred.

Russell-Moyle was suspended for the sitting but readmitted the next day. The last Labour MP to grab the mace back in 2009 was a little-known Labour backbencher called John McDonnell, angry at a Heathrow expansion plan. He was suspended for five days.

Last Tuesday, there was more fury in the Government ranks when Bercow controversially selected an amendment proposed by arch-Remainer Dominic Grieve, the former Tory Attorney General.

It was designed to hand Parliament power over what would happen if the withdrawal deal fell through and was, on every level, highly contentious.

The result was catastrophic for Mrs May — in the space of one hour she suffered three Commons defeats — but no doubt it left the sanctimonious Bercow purring with pleasure at the Government chaos.

Pompous

Ministers tend to suffer in silence the relentless grandstanding of the pompous Bercow, a man who is never happier than when he’s interrupting ministers.

But yesterday Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, finally snapped. In an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme she came close to accusing him of bias.

‘He’s made his views on Brexit on the record, and the problem with that, of course, is that the Chair’s impartiality is absolutely essential,’ she said.

Asked whether she believed his position was ‘tainted’, she added: ‘. . . it’s a matter for him, but nevertheless it’s a challenge and all colleagues need to form their own view of that.’ Chief Whip Julian Smith also expressed his frustration in an ill-judged but revealing ITV programme last week about the operation of the Whips’ Office in the run-up to the vote.

Smith said he was not just battling Tory rebel MPs. ‘We are up against some other issues, like the Speaker. He’s got a strong view on this [Brexit].’

And in a highly unusual move at a Cabinet meeting last week, two ministers openly accused Bercow of trying to poison the Brexit process.

Liam Fox, the International Development Secretary, went furthest. ‘The Speaker is a disgrace to his office,’ he told colleagues. Chancellor Philip Hammond was also critical.

Bercow, who was elected as the Tory MP for Buckingham in 1997 and became Speaker in June 2009 — with the support of Labour MPs and only a handful of Tories — is unrepentant about the breakdown in relations with ministers.

When appointed, he pledged to go after nine years, as is the convention, but typically broke that promise. He is now expected to leave next year following an investigation by a High Court judge, Dame Laura Cox QC, into bullying and harassment of staff in Westminster.

Her report, published in October, found that a culture of ‘deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence’ had allowed the mistreatment of Commons staff to thrive.

Three Tory MPs stepped down from the Commons Reference Group On Representation And Inclusion, which is chaired by Mr Bercow, but he ignored calls for him to quit that, too.

While Bercow was not named in the Cox Report, it was clear Dame Laura believed he should consider his position.

One senior Tory source said last night: ‘It’s Bercow’s swan song, which means he couldn’t care less what we think about him. All he cares about is keeping in with the Labour MPs who put him in the job in the first place — and whose bidding he appears to fulfill.’

Despite the fact that Bercow has also faced claims — which he denies — that he personally bullied two former officials, Labour cynically refuses to call for him to stand aside to enable the cases to be investigated.

Bullying

Earlier this year, Dame Margaret Beckett, a former acting leader of the Labour Party, said Bercow should not quit despite the bullying allegations. Asked if that meant Labour would tolerate bullying, she said: ‘Abuse is terrible; it should be stopped. Behaviour should change anyway, whether the Speaker goes or not.

‘But yes, if it comes to the constitutional future of this country, the most difficult decision we have made, not since the war but possibly, certainly in all our lifetimes, hundreds of years, yes it trumps bad behaviour.’

One senior Tory figure told me: ‘Bercow has worked out he can have two legacies. Being forced out of his job over bullying. Or the Speaker who killed off Brexit.

‘We can see what he’s chosen. He will do everything he can to duck and dive and bend the rules to ensure a difficult hand for the Government.’