Tory revenge! Bercow WON’T get a peerage
Speaker says he’ll step down next month, but PM will deny him a seat in Lords
Farage tweeted ‘good riddance’
JOHN Bercow is set to become the first Speaker in 230 years not to be offered a peerage when he quits next month.
Yesterday he announced he will finally stand down on October 31 – more than a year later than he promised he would.
But Boris Johnson is planning to exact revenge on Mr Bercow for his ‘bias’ over Brexit by denying him a seat in the Lords.
Allies of the Prime Minister said he would rip up the convention that Commons Speakers are automatically elevated to the upper chamber when they resign, in the same way Mr Bercow repeatedly ignored parliamentary precedent when dealing with Brexit.
A government source said: ‘No one in this Government will be rushing to give Bercow a peerage. He likes to think of himself as a reforming Speaker, yet he’s been dogged by scandals and given up any pretence he is impartial. With bullying claims, his Brexit bias and a willingness to ride roughshod over established procedures, this Speaker has undermined public faith in Parliament.’
The move to deny Mr Bercow a peerage comes after he tore up Commons rules last week to allow backbenchers to seize control of the agenda and pass a law delaying Brexit.
Over the past three years the controversial Speaker has repeatedly been accused of siding with pro-Remain MPs to try to undermine the Government.
After announcing his resignation, he allowed MPs to vote on a highly contentious motion demanding access to the personal mobile phones of No 10 aides. Mr Bercow’s announcement came as:
The Tories accused Jeremy Corbyn of ‘running scared’ as MPs were last night expected to again block a snap general election – meaning one cannot be held until November at the earliest;
Parliament was last night due to be prorogued for five weeks, so MPs and peers will not be able to sit in Westminster until October 14;
Mr Johnson and his Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar admitted that there were ‘significant gaps’ between their positions on Brexit as they met for the first time;
Legislation designed to stop the Government forcing through a No Deal Brexit became law after receiving Royal assent by the Queen;
Civil rights group Liberty lodged papers with the High Court aimed at ensuring Mr Johnson is forced to comply with demands that he seeks a Brexit extension from Brussels.
Mr Bercow was close to tears as he announced in the Commons chamber that he would stand down at the end of next month. It came after it was revealed the Conservatives were hoping to oust him by standing a candidate against him in his Buckingham seat at the next election. In his speech to MPs, Mr Bercow said he made no apology for being the ‘ backbenchers’ backstop’ while in the chair. As his wife Sally looked on from the gallery, he added: ‘At the 2017 election, I promised my wife and children that it would be my last. This is a pledge that I intend to keep.’
Opposition MPs gave Mr Bercow – who will walk away with a goldplated £1million non-contributory pension after ten years in the chair – a standing ovation.
However, almost all Tories pointedly stayed seated and then quickly filed out of the chamber as Mr Bercow allowed gushing tributes from backbenchers to drag on for almost 90 minutes.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn praised Mr Bercow for being a ‘superb’ Speaker, and said he had ‘totally changed the way in which the job has been done’.
He was also praised by Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, who tweeted that he was a ‘driven Speaker and gifted orator but above all the keeper of the great British parliamentary tradition’. But Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage tweeted ‘good riddance’.
Mr Bercow took the Speaker’s chair in June 2009, promising to serve ‘no more than nine years’.
He abandoned that commitment ahead of the 2017 snap election, but allegations of bullying by former members of his staff, denied by the Speaker, led to fresh calls for him to quit.
In recent months Mr Bercow – who voted Remain in the 2016 referendum – has also come under fire for a series of controversial rulings which were widely considered to favour Remain supporters. The Speaker is supposed to be neutral.
Mr Bercow’s decision to quit on October 31 rather than at the next election means the current Parliament, which has a majority of MPs who supported Remain, will pick his successor. Brexiteers accused him of gaming the system to stop the decision being made by the next Parliament, which could have more Eurosceptic MPs. Comment – Page 18