Bercow ‘shameless bias’ over new vote
COMMONS Speaker John Bercow was accused of “utterly shameless bias” last night after refusing to allow a vote to rule out a second referendum.
Brexiteers were furious after their bid to quash attempts to force a rerun poll were ignored in favour of little-supported Remainer plots.
Mr Bercow ignored proposals signed by nearly 130 Tory, Labour, DUP and independent MPs to take the threat of another vote off the table.
Instead he chose an attempt to force the public back to the ballot box, as well as a plan supported by just six MPs to stop Theresa May asking the Commons to look again at her EU divorce deal.
Richard Tice, co-founder of the Leave Means Leave campaign, said the “smell of betrayal is getting stronger by the hour”.
“John Bercow has just allowed MPs a vote on holding another referendum, but decided not to allow a vote on ruling one out. Utterly shameless bias,” he said.
Mr Bercow has faced repeated accusations of bias after he told students he had voted Remain in the referendum and admitted wife Sally drives a car with a “b ****** s to Brexit” sticker.
He inflamed tensions by ignoring the bid to rule out a second referendum, the most popular amendment listed by far yesterday, in favour of marginal attempts to hijack Brexit.
Brexiteer Mark Francois told the Speaker that there was “disappointment” that he had not picked the proposals backed by “127 members of this house”.
He said “it therefore had far more signatories than any other amendment on the order paper” before demanding an explanation from Mr Bercow about why it was rejected.
Senior Tory Sir Bernard Jenkin said there might be “some concern” over the selection of amendments around a second Brexit referendum.
Conservative eurosceptic Charlie Elphicke said MPs would be “under no illusion” that one of the proposals chosen by the Speaker was “a disguised amendment aimed at securing a second referendum”.
Mr Bercow said: “I exercised my discretion and allowed it to be put to the House so that the House’s will could be tested.”