Bercow begins his long goodbye by inflicting more Tory turmoil
It was all too much for Sally Bercow. After more than an hour spent sitting listening to MPs eulogise her husband and no sign of anyone letting up, the Speaker’s wife slipped out of the Commons gallery. Things to do, places to go. She’d heard it all before. Most frequently from him.
The lovefest had begun as a series of points of order, immediately after the Speaker had announced his intention to stand down at the end of parliamentary proceedings on 31 October – a statement that had not been well received on the government benches. Partly because it was clear John Bercow was planning on going out on a personal high by working flat out to prevent Boris Johnson from disobeying the law by taking the UK out of the EU with a no-deal Brexit. But mainly because the Tories’ own cunning plan to remove the Speaker by breaking with convention and putting up a candidate
against him at the next election was now toast. Classic Dom.
After Bercow had eventually wound to a close – even the most verbose and lachrymose statements must come to an end – every member of the opposition parties and a handful of Tory MPs rose to applaud him. The government front bench looked as if it was about to throw up. Jeremy Corbyn was first on his feet to thank the Speaker and praise him for his services to democracy. Something that Michael Gove then echoed. Not because he meant it, but because he thought it would look bad if no minister said anything. There are few better at duplicity and insincerity than Gove.
A couple of Tories from Bercow’s neighbouring constituencies in Buckinghamshire gave rather more genuine tributes, but otherwise the love came only from the opposition benches. The Speaker was praised for his championing of backbenchers, for standing up for the rights of parliament, for holding the government to account, and for his work promoting women and race equalities in parliament. All of which were true and heartfelt, though for some reason, no one chose to mention the allegations against him of abuse and bullying. Perhaps they just forgot in the heat of the moment.
Bercow looked slightly disap
pointed that the tributes had only taken up 90 minutes of an already crowded day, but contented himself with the knowledge that this had really only been a dress rehearsal. When he actually does stand down at the end of October, Bercow will be sure to set aside several days for MPs to express their adoration more formally. The Long Goodbye to the Speaker is one of the few parliamentary traditions about which he has no reservations.
With the wonders of his politeness and courtesy still ringing in his ears, Bercow wasted no time in shouting down two junior ministers, James Duddridge and Graham Stuart, who were objecting to him granting emergency debates and a humble address, to Dominic Grieve and Corbyn. Bercow was going to enjoy every minute of the time he had left.
Both emergency debates covered much the same ground – namely that the government could no longer be trusted to do even the most simple tasks. It had lied about the reasons for the unprecedented five-week prorogation that was due to begin later that night. It had lied about the details and timing of its no-deal preparations. And it was now already threatening to ignore the bill, on which the royal assent was barely dry, insisting that the government ask the EU for an extension if no deal had been agreed.
Grieve, Corbyn and Kier Starmer were all forensic and damning in their judgments. The closest to a defence the government could muster was Owen Paterson arguing that Dominic Cummings was just a political ingenue; someone with no experience of how government operated and who couldn’t be expected to have his personal emails saying, “Sod the constitution, I’ll do what I fucking like, you fucking fuck” taken personally.
It was just another humiliation in a day of humiliations for Boris Johnson. Just a few weeks ago, he’d been mistaken for a statesman of substance in his meetings with Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel. In his press conference with Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, he had been exposed as a weak, incompetent, deceitful fraud. A prime minister so desperate for power he is not even trusted by his family or friends. A man of such needy narcissism that he can only say what he thinks his audience wants to hear and is crushed under his own contradictions.
His defeat in the Grieve humble address was his fifth. One more was to come before the night was out. History in the making. Johnson had gambled and failed abjectly. He had imagined prorogation and a general election as a brilliant play. His finest hour. Instead he was only further diminished. Hubris, thy name is Boris. Classic Dom.