Universities told to strip Bercow of posts over bullying

TWO universities are under pressure to remove John Bercow from academic posts in the wake of a parliamentary report that found he had bullied House of Commons staff on 21 occasions.

MPS yesterday said Royal Holloway and Birkbeck, both colleges of the University of London, should disown the former Commons speaker after appointing him to honorary roles since he stood down from Parliament in 2019.

Mr Bercow was found by Parliament’s Independent Expert Panel (IEP) on Tuesday to have been a “serial bully” of three of his junior colleagues and to have lied to officials investigating allegations stretching back to 2009.

Mr Bercow denies all claims of bullying and has refused to apologise, dubbing the IEP a “kangaroo court”. He suggests his accusers were motivated by “a vengeful vendetta” against his reforms of Commons procedure.

Despite Mr Bercow’s claims that the investigators had little legal expertise, the panel looking at his case was staffed by a former appeal court judge and a former chief coroner of England and Wales.

It concluded that Mr Bercow displayed “intimidatory and undermining” behaviour, and “threatening conduct”, including the smashing of a mobile phone on a desk during a fit of rage.

Caroline Johnson, a Conservative MP on the Commons education select committee, said the two universities should look again at Mr Bercow’s appointment in light of the findings against him.

While acknowledging that they were free to make their own decision, Ms Johnson said the report was “very damning” of the former speaker and MP for Buckingham. She said: “I feel sure that neither institution would wish its staff or students to be bullied nor to be seen to back someone found to have been a serial bully.”

A Whitehall source added: “Uni students have put up with plenty enough over the past few years.

“The prospect of the disgraced former speaker, bereft of his parliamentary pass and with time to kill, must fill them with dread.”

Both Birkbeck and Royal Holloway last night said they stood by Mr Bercow and would allow him to continue in his posts as a fellow and visiting professor of politics respectively.

A Birkbeck spokesman said Mr Bercow had been an “advocate of our world-leading research into the ways in which babies and toddlers learn and develop”, while Royal Holloway said it had received “positive feedback from students who value the insight they gain from his extensive experience and knowledge of British politics”.

Editorial Comment: Page 17 Michael Deacon: Page 21