Bercow: I want to stay on until 2020

JOHN Bercow has told friends he wants to stay on as Speaker until 2020, despite formal moves to force him out after his extraordinary attack on Donald Trump this week.

Mr Bercow pledged that he would serve for nine years when he took over as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009.

But a senior Tory source said he was now canvassing opinion about the idea of staying in post until the next election in May 2020.

The source said: ‘John is being very vague about it... He promised he would go after nine years but there is very little anyone can do about it if he decides to changes his mind.’

The revelation will enrage his Tory critics, who believe he has damaged the impartiality of the Speaker’s office with his outspoken attack on President Trump.

He stunned MPs when he said Mr Trump should be banned from addressing Parliament in Westminster Hall because of his ‘sexism and racism’. Ministers were privately infuriated by the ‘insult’ to Mr Trump, who was invited by Theresa May to make a state visit to the UK in June.

On Thursday, former Tory minister James Duddridge took the rare step of tabling a motion of no confidence in Mr Bercow, saying he had ‘overstepped the mark’.

Fellow Conservative Alec Shelbrooke said that although he disagreed with Mr Trump’s ‘discriminatory’ travel ban on seven Muslimmajority nations, Mr Bercow had gone too far.

Tory Andrew Bridgen added: ‘He needs to be replaced before President Trump’s state visit.’

A spokesman for Mr Bercow said: ‘It’s up to him when he wants to stand down.’