PM’s ALLIES IN BID TO TOPPLE BERCOW
As Mr Speaker schemes from his sunbed, Tory chiefs urged to field Election candidate against him
‘He is out of touch with those he owes his career to’
ANGRY Tory loyalists last night demanded that John Bercow be punished for his ‘blatant Brexit bias’ by being booted out of his Commons constituency.
Allies of Boris Johnson called on party bosses to ditch convention and field an official Tory candidate against the Speaker in his Buckingham seat if a snap Election is called. The move would shatter the Commons tradition that Speakers are not opposed by the major political parties when they stand for re-election.
But it comes amid Tory predictions that Mr Bercow will once again abandon impartiality by aiding a bid to block Brexit by Remainer rebels and Labour at Westminster this week.
A senior Minister even suggested that the Speaker himself harboured ambitions to be the so-called ‘unity Prime Minister’ who would replace Mr Johnson and lead an antiNo Deal interim government.
And in an article for The Mail on Sunday, Natascha Engel – one of Mr Bercow’s former Deputy Speakers – accuses him of being ‘in open opposition to the people who voted to leave’ and risking the very hard Brexit Remainers want to avoid.
The outspoken Mr Bercow, who voted Remain in 2016, enraged Ministers and Brexit-backing Tories last week by interrupting his holiday in Turkey to brand the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue Parliament a ‘constitutional outrage’. The remark, together with claims that he has held secret talks with anti-No Deal Tory MP Sir Oliver Letwin, fuelled Brexiteer suspicions that he will this week ‘bend’ Commons rules to help prevent Mr Johnson getting Brexit over the line by October 31.
He is expected to grant the socalled ‘rebel alliance’ of Labour, Lib Dem and Tory dissidents a special debate to allow them to take over the Commons agenda on Wednesday and pass a Bill ruling out a NoDeal Brexit despite repeated warnings that without that threat, Brussels will never give the UK a good deal.
In line with Commons convention, Mr Bercow has been unchallenged in his Buckingham seat from the major parties since becoming Speaker in 2009.
Last night, Tory backbencher David Davies demanded an end to that privilege if he stands for reelection as an MP. He called on Tory chairman James Cleverly to intervene with the Buckingham Conservative Association to get them to field an official Tory candidate. Mr Davies said: ‘The reality is now that the gloves are off. Remain-supporting MPs – including Mr Bercow – are using every trick in the book and tearing up all precedence to try to prevent the democratic voice of the public from being heard on Brexit.
‘We have to fight this battle in the same way. If that means breaking the precedent of not standing against the Speaker in his constituency at the next General Election, then so be it.’
Monmouth MP Mr Davies added that even if Mr Bercow was returned to the Commons, Tory MPs should vote him out of the Speaker’s job. He said: ‘The Remain-supporting Speaker is not acting in an impartial fashion. He is simply following his own instincts, which are out of touch with those of the Conservative Party that he owes his career to and those of the people of Britain who have expressed their wish to leave, not just in the referendum, but also in the 2017 General Election and the 2019 European elections.’
Last month, Mr Bercow said he would fight any attempt to prorogue Parliament ‘with every bone in my body’ but he has denied acting improperly over Brexit.
However, in January, he overruled his officials by allowing a vote on an amendment that forced then Prime Minister Theresa May to present an EU Withdrawal Bill ‘Plan B’ to MPs after they rejected her deal. He admitted he had flouted precedent, saying: ‘If we were guided only by precedent, manifestly nothing in our procedures would ever change… I have made an honest judgment.’
The move led to former Tory Min
ister Crispin Blunt to say: ‘Many of us will now have an unshakeable conviction that the referee of our affairs… is no longer neutral.’
Last night, one senior Minister told The Mail on Sunday that he suspected that so great were the Speaker’s Remainer convictions, that he himself fancied taking on the role of interim PM if Mr Johnson was forced out.
But allies of the Speaker branded the idea ‘absurd’ and claimed the Government was simply trying to smear Mr Bercow ahead of this week’s showdowns.
Mr Johnson has defended his decision to prorogue Parliament, saying that ‘the more the parliamentarians try to block the No Deal Brexit, the more likely it is that we’ll end up in that situation’.
Asked whether the Speaker did intend to stand at the next Election, Mr Bercow’s spokeswoman said that he would tell the Commons ‘in the event he has anything to say on his future plans’.