Speaker Bercow may not survive. But much more important is what happens to his office.
The role of the Speaker has come under scrutiny in recent days, after John Bercow broke with precedent by in effect siding with a cross-party alliance of Tory rebels and the Opposition to deny the Government the wherewithal to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. Mr Speaker ignored the advice of the clerks of the Commons, thereby allowing the first defeat by any administration on a finance Bill for four decades.
It is easy to see why Downing Street was furious with Bercow. A Cabinet source was quoted in The Times to the effect that the Government’s relationship with the Speaker was “beyond breaking point, it is broken”. It is hard to see how the normal business of governance can be carried on without that relationship being restored. But for that to happen would require either a new Speaker or a new Government, or both.
The office of the Speaker is unique to the British Parliament. In most parliamentary democracies there is a comparable position, but it is almost always held by a senior politician of the governing party or coalition. In the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is the leader of the largest party, Nancy Pelosi,while that of the Senate is the Vice-President, Mike Pence. The President of the German Bundestag is Wolfgang Schäuble, the country’s leading elder statesman; he is also that parliament’s longest-serving member — which in the Commons would be called the Father of the House.
Only in Britain are Speakers not merely elected by the Commons, but bound to serve the House rather than the executive, regardless of their party allegiance. In normal times governments try hard to cultivate a good working relationship with the Speaker, but the latter has no constitutional obligation to the former. In any case, these are not normal times.
The distinctive role of the Speaker was forged in the heat of the conflict between the king and Parliament which came to a head under Charles I. The Speaker in the Parliament of 1628-29 was Sir John Finch, MP for Canterbury, who saw his duty as being a loyal servant of the Crown. Parliament thought differently: it was engaged in a crucial battle with Charles over Ship Money, which eventually established the principle of no taxation without representation— the principle that ultimately led to the creation of the United States.
During one of these stormy debates, Speaker Finch tried to leave the chamber in order to receive instructions from the king. He was held down in his chair by two other members and ordered to await the pleasure of the House. This established another important principle: that Speaker, who chairs and regulates debates, is the servant of the House, not of the Crown, i.e. the Government. Hence the ritual, still performed whenever a Speaker is elected, that he or she be dragged to the chair by two senior MPs.
Sir John Finch was a most reluctant servant of the Commons: he never changed his Royalist allegiance and was obliged to emigrate when Parliament won the Civil War, though he returned at the Restoration just in time to die. Better known are the words of Speaker William Lenthall, who in 1642 defied Charles I: “May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.”
Speaker Bercow may suppose that he is playing a similar role in defying the Prime Minister. But Theresa May believes that she is carrying out the instructions of the electorate by giving effect to Brexit. Parliament is in the not unusual position of a legislature that is at odds with the executive, and the latter regards the Speaker as a neutral arbiter between them. The Speaker himself clearly sees no obligation to be neutral and has taken an openly partisan stance on Brexit, by assisting those — doubtless a majority of MPs — who wish to rule out no-deal. It remains to be seen whether Speaker Bercow, whose reputation was not above various suspicions even before this latest fracas, will survive. Much more important is his office. It may be that future Speakers treat the present crisis between legislature and executive as a precedent to reclaim power for Parliament. Our unwritten constitution allows for such unplanned, spontaneous innovations. But if Parliament is determined to thwart the result of a democratic referendum for which it voted, then collateral damage to the institution is inevitable.
