Tory MPs threaten Bercow over his peerage

JOHN BERCOW faces the threat of a mass protest by Tory MPs if he repeats his ‘abuse of authority’ at this week’s crucial Brexit debate.

The Speaker was warned that more than 100 MPs would stand up to oppose him in a demonstration of ‘mass defiance’ of his authority.

Tory MPs also said that Mr Bercow should be denied the Speaker’s traditional peerage on retirement if he once again ‘bent’ timehonoured Commons rules.

In an article for this newspaper, Morecambe MP David Morris backed the peerage threat, saying: ‘Most of my colleagues now feel he has betrayed his historic office.’

Mr Bercow sparked extraordinary protests in the Commons last week when he was accused of shredding parliamentary procedure to allow a vote designed to tie Theresa May’s hands over Brexit. Amid furious scenes, the Speaker faced repeated accusations that he had ignored expert advice from the Commons Clerk, Sir David Natzler, to allow the vote to go ahead. The Government subsequent lost the vote.

Tory MPs are now threatening even stronger action if Mr Bercow repeats the tactics during this week’s vital final debates and vote on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal. Sources said more than 100 were ready to stand up ‘en masse’ to protest if Mr Bercow shows what they called ‘blatant bias’ against the Government.

The threat raises the prospect of the entire debate having to be suspended.

Mr Morris, who last week stood and challenged Mr Bercow to publish the advice of Commons clerks that he was overriding, said he was ready to take part in the protest.

The MP – a Remain voter who now supports Brexit – said: ‘Should the Speaker again seek to bend the rules, I will have no hesitation in once again standing and protesting.’

Mr Morris compared him to a ‘cricket umpire, who halfway through the game, invents a new method of dismissal to suit the losing side’.

Remain voter Mr Bercow has insisted that he had behaved entirely properly and had always been ‘scrupulously fair to Brexiteers and Remainers alike’.

‘He has betrayed his historic office’