(^) The Mail on Sunday September 1 • 2019
ANGRY Tory loyalists last night demanded
that John Bercow be punished for his ‘bla-
tant Brexit bias’ by being booted out of his
Commons constituency.
Allies of Boris Johnson called on party
bosses to ditch convention and field an offi-
cial Tory candidate against the Speaker in
his Buckingham seat if a snap Election is
called. The move would shatter the Com-
mons tradition that Speakers are not opposed
by the major political parties when they
stand for re-election.
But it comes amid Tory predictions that
Mr Bercow will once again abandon imparti-
ality by aiding a bid to block Brexit by
Remainer rebels and Labour at Westminster
this week.
A senior Minister even suggested that the
Speaker himself harboured ambitions to be
the so-called ‘unity Prime Minister’ who
would replace Mr Johnson and lead an anti-
No Deal interim government.
And in an article for The Mail on Sunday,
Natascha Engel – one of Mr Bercow’s former
Deputy Speakers – accuses him of being ‘in
open opposition to the people who voted to
leave’ and risking the very hard Brexit
Remainers want to avoid.
The outspoken Mr Bercow, who voted
Remain in 2016, enraged Ministers and
Brexit-backing Tories last week by interrupt-
ing his holiday in Turkey to brand the Prime
Minister’s decision to prorogue Parliament
a ‘constitutional outrage’. The remark,
together with claims that he has held secret
talks with anti-No Deal Tory MP Sir Oliver
He loves high stakes... now he’s betting the House
Letwin, fuelled Brexiteer suspi-
cions that he will this week ‘bend’
Commons rules to help prevent Mr
Johnson getting Brexit over the line
by October 31.
He is expected to grant the so-
called ‘rebel alliance’ of Labour, Lib
Dem and Tory dissidents a special
debate to allow them to take over
the Commons agenda on Wednes-
day and pass a Bill ruling out a No-
Deal Brexit despite repeated
warnings that without that threat,
Brussels will never give the UK a
good deal.
In line with Commons convention,
Mr Bercow has been unchallenged
in his Buckingham seat from the
major parties since becoming
Speaker in 2009.
Last night, Tory backbencher
David Davies demanded an end to
that privilege if he stands for re-
election as an MP. He called on
Tory chairman James Cleverly to
intervene with the Buckingham
Conservative Association to get
10
By Brendan Carlin
Political corresPondent
By NatasCha ENgEl
former commons dePuty sPeaker
W
HEN Parliament
returns this week,
all eyes will be on
the battle of wills
and wits between
the Prime Minister
and the Commons
Speaker. John Bercow may believe
that what he is doing is defending
the rights of Parliament and its
duty to hold the executive to
account. In fact, there is much
more at stake as his latest
interventions on Brexit show.
The Speaker is doing nothing
less than changing the historic
relationship between Parliament
as the legislature and the
Government as the executive in a
fundamental way. If he succeeds,
it won’t be the Prime Minister
proroguing Parliament that will be
remembered as a ‘constitutional
outrage’, to quote Mr Bercow’s
own words last week.
Despite being a former
Conservative MP, Mr Bercow
could never be accused of pro-
Tory bias. Far from it. Moreover,
when it comes to Brexit, he has
never made a secret of his views
or willingness to enter the political
fray. But by trying to stop the
Prime Minister’s potentially No
Deal Brexit, Mr Speaker appears
to be moving in the direction of a
US-style Speaker.
By tradition, Commons Speakers
are politically impartial whereas
the US Congress Speaker has an
overtly political role.
Some may say Mr Bercow
embarked on this controversial
road a long time ago. But the
consequences of what may now
unfold are much more serious.
Until the 2016 referendum,
Parliament was firmly the
representative of the people and
the people were happy that their
Parliament was sovereign.
But David Cameron passed that
sovereignty from Parliament to
the people by asking them to vote
on whether we should Leave or
Remain in the EU.
The people were told that their
decision was binding. Leave or
Remain, it would be implemented.
When the votes came in, we saw
a seismic shift in representation,
with the Government trying to
implement the will of the people
against a Remain Parliament
trying to stop them. The only way
that Parliament could do so was
with a Speaker willing to invent
new rules. He has done so already
with the ‘Cooper-Letwin Bill’,
which effectively extended Brexit
Day to October 31 and he has made
known that he is about to try again.
In doing so, Mr Speaker is not
only in open opposition to the
people, who voted Leave, but he
may actually cause the hard
Brexit that his Remain supporters
are so keen to avoid.
We know that Boris Johnson
won’t let his hands be tied.
Should the Speaker allow
Parliament to legislate to force
the Government to ask for an
extension to Brexit, then the
Prime Minister will call a General
Election – during which a hard
Brexit could happen on October 31
by default. In a campaign that pits
Parliament versus people, the
Boris allies
bid to topple
‘saboteur’
Bercow
‘he is out of touch with
those he owes his career to’
As Mr Speaker schemes from his
sunbed, Tory chiefs urged to field
Election candidate against him
them to field an official Tory candi-
date. Mr Davies said: ‘The reality
is now that the gloves are off.
Remain-supporting MPs – includ-
ing Mr Bercow – are using every
trick in the book and tearing up all
precedence to try to prevent the
democratic voice of the public from
being heard on Brexit.
‘We have to fight this battle in the
same way. If that means breaking
the precedent of not standing
against the Speaker in his constitu-
ency at the next General Election,
then so be it.’
Monmouth MP Mr Davies added
that even if Mr Bercow was returned
to the Commons, Tory MPs should
vote him out of the Speaker’s job.
He said: ‘The Remain-supporting
Speaker is not acting in an impartial
fashion. He is simply following his
own instincts, which are out of touch
with those of the Conservative Party
that he owes his career to and those
of the people of Britain who have
expressed their wish to leave, not
just in the referendum, but also in
the 2017 General Election and the
2019 European elections.’
Last month, Mr Bercow said he
would fight any attempt to pro-
rogue Parliament ‘with every bone
in my body’ but he has denied act-
ing improperly over Brexit.
However, in January, he over-
ruled his officials by allowing a
vote on an amendment that forced
then Prime Minister Theresa May
to present an EU Withdrawal Bill
‘Plan B’ to MPs after they rejected
her deal. He admitted he had
flouted precedent, saying: ‘If we
were guided only by precedent,
manifestly nothing in our proce-
dures would ever change... I have
made an honest judgment.’
The move led to former Tory Min-
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