Backing Bercow shows the Left’s lack of principle
When a group of people convince themselves that their ideology is so superior that anything they do must be good by virtue of the fact that they are doing it, the whole country is in trouble.
I suspect it was buoyed by this conviction that Labour MPs decided to ensure that John Bercow’s position as Speaker remained secure last week, despite the allegations of bullying against him. They even turned on their own colleagues. Sir Kevin Barron, who dared to go against their collective stance, was condemned by fellow Labour MP Barry Sheerman for “siding with far-Right Brexiteers and their vile campaign against our Speaker”.
It is no secret that many Conservative MPs would love to see the back of the openly anti-Brexit Mr Bercow, but it certainly wasn’t just Brexiteers who were demanding change at the top of the Commons hierarchy. Maria Miller, who supported Remain, called for the Speaker to quit in her speech following the release of Dame Laura Cox’s report into Westminster harassment and bullying.
But politics came before people, as the leader of the union representing senior civil servants observed, branding Emily Thornberry’s inability to side with the victims as “disingenuous”, especially after the shadow foreign secretary had delivered a paean to workers’ rights at the TUC’s 150th anniversary earlier in the year.
Of course, all sides believe that their ideology is key to delivering the best way of life for their fellow countrymen. But the Left appears to be so drunk on the piety of their beliefs that those who like to see themselves as defenders of the vulnerable would happily sacrifice the very people they profess to stand up for in order to score a political victory over their ideological opponents.
As in the case of Mr Sheerman, it appears that, if you can persuade yourself that your opponents are extremists, even when you should know full well that they are not, you can justify taking any political position. The simple fact that your opponents want to oust Mr Bercow is a good enough reason to keep him in place.
But this mode of thinking has other worrying consequences. Nothing is more important to the increasingly purist Left than the destruction of “the enemy”, who are so evil that the rules of engagement that the Left itself has so assiduously laid out do not seem to apply to them. If you are Left-wing, you can use sexist or racist language to attack your opponent and still claim to be the good guy because you’re only attacking the wrong kind of woman or the wrong kind of immigrant who deserves the abuse. I should know: I have had to start blocking people on social media – reluctantly – for my own sanity.
No individual MP can fix this, but they can still do the right thing in the Commons. Labour can extol the virtues of all-woman shortlists in ensuring more women enter Parliament as much as they like, but if they cannot put their weight behind making sure the culture of bullying (which doesn’t only affect women, of course) is rooted out of Westminster, women and other underrepresented groups will continue to be put off by politics.
It’s time for the MPs to unite in putting their money where their mouth is and put their own House in order. FOLLOW Dia Chakravarty on Twitter @DiaChakravarty;
at telegraph.co.uk/opinion