Has Speaker Bercow gone rogue?
Jack Taylor/Getty Images
Speaker Bercow is behaving, not as the servant of the House of Commons, but as its master. The occupant of the Speaker’s Chair is supposed to be seen and seldom heard; this Speaker speaks far too much. Brexit has brought out the worst in him. Not only does he literally play to the gallery: his vanity has driven him to exceed the limits of his office.
In recent months, Bercow has arbitrarily set aside precedent, particularly on standing orders, thereby upsetting the delicate balance between executive and legislature. Now, seemingly on a whim, he cites precedent in support of his ruling that the Government cannot hold a third vote on the Withdrawal Agreement. While the convention he now relies on may indeed be of long standing, its effect in this case is patently political and indeed partisan: it forces the Prime Minister to go naked into the conference chamber on Thursday at the European summit in Brussels. She will now have little choice but to request a long extension of Brexit, no doubt with conditions attached, thereby defying the democratic result of the 2016 referendum and setting Parliament against the people.
No previous Speaker has taken it upon himself to thwart the Prime Minister in this way. Rather than fulfill his constitutional function, he courts controversy and disregards neutrality. Mr Speaker is no longer merely a maverick — he has become a menace.
What is to be done? The Opposition Party leaders indulge Bercow, knowing that his love of the limelight serves their purpose. So too do backbenchers, many of whom blatantly flatter him in return for his favours. So there would be no majority to remove him, even in normal times; and these are not normal times.
Given that, for sound historical reasons, the office of the Chair is hedged about with constitutional protections, the only way to rein in the present incumbent is to challenge him on his own ground. Jacob Rees-Mogg showed the way in his response to Bercow’s ruling against the Government. With delicate irony, the Member for North-East Somerset congratulated the Speaker: “First, may I say how delighted I am that you have decided to follow precedent, which is something I am greatly in favour of? Dare I say that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repented than over the 99 who are not in need of repentance?”
For a nominally impartial Officer of the House to drive a coach and horses through the unwritten constitution is itself unprecedented. The Government must therefore accept his ruling based on precedent, but issue a formal challenge to every instance where the Speaker has disregarded or gone beyond precedent. He too must be held to account.
In his ruling, Bercow made much of his own outrage at the Government’s postponement of the “meaningful vote” in December: “Indeed, I pointed out at the time that that was deeply discourteous to the House and I suggested that the permission of the House for that postponement should be sought. Regrettably, it was not.” (Note the characteristic use of the first person singular here: it’s all about him.)
Yet his own decision to upend the Government’s negotiations with the EU was not communicated to Downing Street through the usual channels, in this case the Leader of the House, Andrea Leadsom. The Speaker and the Leader make no secret of their mutual loathing — one reason why the Commons has become dysfunctional. With heavy sarcasm, he commended her as “a notable reformer”, who might well instigate a Speaker’s Conference, a traditional remedy when relations have broken down. Mrs Leadsom responded tartly: “I am indeed a reforming Leader of the House of Commons, and for me, treating colleagues with courtesy and respect is at the forefront of that reform, and any Speaker’s Conference would have to have that at its heart and I simply would not be confident that that would be the case.”
Quite apart from any discourtesy to herself and Mrs May, Mrs Leadsom was perhaps also alluding to the Speaker’s notorious bullying of his own staff, the investigation of which has been highly unsatisfactory. Yet the evidence is clear. A former judge, Dame Laura Cox, delivered a damning report last October which revealed a culture of “deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence” that had covered up intimidation complained of by some 200 Commons staff. She suggested that those responsible should “consider their positions”. The buck stops with Bercow.
Whether or not the Speaker is a rogue, he has certainly become a rogue Speaker. He has promised to step down this summer, but he has broken such promises before. His occupation of the Chair has lasted ten long years. Speaker Bercow has delighted us long enough.
