The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Vara slams ‘biased’ Bercow after voting for Theresa May’s deal
MP accuses Speaker of the House of Commons of ‘making up the rules as we go along’ after ‘reluctantly’ backing Prime Minister’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement
Shailesh Vara has claimed the “biased” Speaker of the House of Commons has forced him to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal as the alternative is the UK never leaving the EU.
The Conservative MP for North West Cambridgeshire accused John Bercow of “making up the rules as we go along” to try and prevent Brexit from taking place.
Mr Vara has been a vocal critic of the Prime Minister’s deal and resigned from govern- ment to twice vote against it. However, last Friday he voted for it “with reluctance” claiming that it was the “least bad choice to deliver on the referendum result”.
Explaining his decision to the Peterborough Telegraph, the former Northern Ireland minister said Mr Bercow had thrown away parliamentary precedence by allowing the takeover of the timetable by MPs who will block Brexit from taking place.
He also accused the Speaker of bias in favour of Remain MPs, in particular over Monday night’s indicative votes
on alternative Brexit options where Mr Bercow only accepted motions which favoured a ‘soft’ Brexit.
Mr Vara stated: “In November when I resigned there was an expectation Parliament would follow the course it has done for decades and decades. At that time there was no knowledge the Speaker would break over 100 years of tradition and change the rules.
“We have a Speaker who is making up the rules as we go along and he is making up those rules which are purely to ensure the UK does not leave the EU.
“The withdrawal agreement remains bad. However, with much reluctance I voted for it last week because the options that were being presented with Parliament taking control were much worse.
“We are left with the least bad course of action, and this can be the only way we will have Brexit taking place. All other options take us back towards the EU. If we accept the deal we could then undo the damage of it from outside the EU rather than not leaving.”
Mr Vara voted Remain in the 2016 referendum but has been a vocal supporter of Brexit ever since, claiming that it would damage democracy not to Leave the EU, or to have a second vote.
‘We have a Speaker who is making up the rules as we go along’