Bercow in full pomp as he calls MPs back
John Bercow was accused of ‘pompous’ grandstanding yesterday after he made an extraordinary statement welcoming the Supreme Court ruling.
The Commons Speaker called TV cameras to College Green, outside Parliament, to announce MPs would resume their seats at 11.30 this morning.
And he made clear he would set aside time for an emergency debate on the Government’s decision to prorogue Parliament, setting up what is likely to be a Commons ordeal for Boris Johnson.
While Mr Bercow was apparently enjoying the limelight, his counterpart in the house of Lords, Lord Fowler, simply issued a press release to say peers would sit from this afternoon. The Commons Speaker, who announced earlier this month he would step down by october 31, has been accused by Brexiteers of pro-Remain bias.
Mr Bercow made his speech, carried live on TV, in a rainy Westminster an hour after the shock Supreme Court ruling. he said there would be no Prime Minister’s Questions but there would be scope for applications for emergency debates and calls for ministers to be summoned to the house.
‘I welcome the judgment this morning of the Supreme Court. That judgment is unanimous, that judgment is unambiguous and that judgment is unqualified,’ Mr Bercow said. ‘That judgment is that the prorogation of Parliament was unlawful, unlawful because it prevented or frustrated Parliament in the discharge of its core duties and it did so at a crucial time for our country.
‘The citizens of the UK are entitled to expect that Parliament does discharge its core functions, that it is in a position to scrutinise the executive, to hold ministers to account and to legislate if it chooses. In the light of that explicit judgment I have instructed the house authorities to prepare, not for the recall – the prorogation was unlawful and is void – to prepare for the resumption of the business of the house of Commons.
‘Specifically I’ve instructed the house authorities to undertake such lengths as are necessary to ensure that the house of Commons sits tomorrow and that it does so at 11.30am.’ Mr Bercow said he had contacted party leaders or their representatives.
‘owning to notification requirements, it will not be possible for there to be a Prime Minister’s Questions tomorrow,’ he said.
‘however, for the avoidance of doubt, there will be full scope for urgent questions, for ministerial statements and for applications for emergency debates under Standing order number 24.’
Tory MP Michael Fabricant said: ‘Pompous – thy name is Bercow. The Remainer was clearly enjoying his last hurrah.’
‘Clearly enjoying his last hurrah’
What you have to get through your thick heads, you easily led, Leave-voting morons, is that this ruling wasn’t about Brexit. Goodness me, no. Perish the thought. We have the unimpeachable assurance of no less a figure than Lady hale, President of the Supreme Court.
handing down the unanimous decision of all 11 justices, she was keen to emphasise: ‘these cases are not about when and on what terms the United Kingdom is to leave the European Union.’
We are most grateful for the clarification, m’lady. Otherwise we may have got the wrong impression.
Watching the self-styled Remain alliance bouncing up and down on the steps of the court afterwards, we could have been forgiven for concluding this judgment had everything to do with Brexit.
the Usual Suspects were all there: Soubry Loo, that Green madwoman, the porky pub bore from the SNP, Chucky Umunna — celebrating like the crew of the Starship Enterprise on shore leave.
If this wasn’t about Brexit, what were they doing there?
If this wasn’t about Brexit, why did arch-Remainer Gina Miller bring her case in the first place?
Why, otherwise, were they so violently opposed to Boris Johnson suspending Parliament for five weeks?
It’s not as if any of them have ever objected before to having more than a month off.
In the 40-odd years I’ve been writing about politics, I can’t remember Parliament ever sitting in September.
the house would break up in the summer and not reconvene until after the party conference season in October.
So what was the big deal? MPs are being ‘silenced’, they screamed. If only. they never shut up. No, the real reason they were feigning outrage is that Boris would have denied them a few extra days to frustrate Brexit.
Not that the submissions before the court reflected that. the plaintiffs insisted they were simply interested in defending parliamentary sovereignty.
the only reason Gina Miller is so keen on Parliament is that her best chance of blocking Brexit altogether lies with the overwhelming number of Remainer MPs determined to overturn the result of the 2016 referendum.
ThIS is the wealthy businesswoman who said that when she realised Britain had voted Leave she felt physically sick.
that shouldn’t give her and her rich backers, many of whom live abroad, carte blanche to use the courts in a shameless attempt to block a democratic vote by 17.4 million people. Not once but twice.
What we’re seeing here is rich man’s justice, in which cases can only be brought by those with the deepest pockets. they can afford the best lawyers and finance legal action right up to the Supreme Court.
Risibly, they claim to be ‘defending democracy’ — the same dishonest excuse trotted out by fanatical Remainers in the Commons, including the nominally independent Speaker, who was unable to contain his smug delight at yesterday’s ruling.
Yet I wonder how many of John Bercow’s recent machinations would stand up in a court of law. Boris has been found guilty of playing fast and loose with parliamentary precedent. But Bercow has spent the last three years bending the rules, conniving with Remain ultras to turn the relationship between MPs and the executive on its head.
Where’s the precedent for MPs seizing the order of parliamentary business from the Government?
Where, for that matter, is the precedent for Parliament deliberately refusing to implement the result of a referendum for which they voted and promised to honour?
Where is the precedent for those who have seized control of the house then effectively taking the Prime Minister hostage and passing a hasty law to prevent him negotiating properly on a major constitutional and foreign policy issue?
Where is the precedent for emasculating a Prime Minister but refusing to allow him to call a general election?
has Bercow not been abusing his power, making up the rules as he goes along?
have MPs not acted in contravention of long-established parliamentary tradition?
Can you imagine the outcry if a wealthy Leave supporter — financed, say, by rich Republicans in the U.S. — decided to do a Gina Miller and challenge the behaviour of Bercow and Remain MPs in court?
and you can also imagine the howls if judges ruled that Bercow and his cohorts had acted illegally and ordered them to vote through a No Deal Brexit without further delay.
SO SOMEONE explain to me what’s the difference between that unlikely scenario and not just Boris Johnson but the referendum result itself being dragged through the courts.
Remainers have tried every grubby trick in the book to stop Brexit. But when Boris pulls a stroke of his own, they squeal ‘foul’ like spoilt children and run to the law.
You’ll find the full details of yesterday’s judgment elsewhere. But all you need to know is that the court found Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament to be unlawful.
In a ruling which went way beyond the wildest expectations of Remainers, Lady hale added: ‘the effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme. No justification for taking action with such an extreme effect has been put before the court.’
Well, that’s her learned opinion. But perhaps the reason is because this should never have come before the courts in the first place. the high Court in London had earlier ruled that this was a purely ‘political’ matter, not one for judges to decide.
that was also the advice given to the Government by attorney General Geoffrey Cox, although the Court of Session in Edinburgh thought differently.
Lady hale may say that the Supreme Court’s decision was nothing to do with Brexit. But the case was brought for nakedly political reasons and places unelected judges above elected politicians, including the Prime Minister.
What the political class still don’t get is that Leave wasn’t just about freeing us from the shackles of an anti-democratic, bureaucratic foreign superstate.
We were rejecting the whole rotten Establishment edifice — up to and including the selfregarding, self-important judicial class.
Inside the Bubble this is being presented as a victory for parliamentary sovereignty, for justice and for democracy.
Outside, where most of us live, we can see it for exactly what it really is: a disgraceful, but wellexecuted Remain stitch-up.
they’re trying to drum into our thick heads that they know best and our votes are worthless.
It isn’t justice, and it’s definitely not democracy.