Bad Bercow did serious harm to Parliament and the constitution

It is worth recalling just how much good will there was towards John Bercow when he became Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009. Traumatised MPs had just been through the expenses scandal and many of them were feeling very sorry for themselves indeed. The famous Daily Telegraph investigation – based on a leaked computer drive and the unvarnished truth – had revealed that many MPs were at it in terms that infuriated those who paid their wages, the voters.

The previous Speaker, a friend of the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, had been overwhelmed by the crisis and in highly unusual scenes he was forced out.

Bercow got the gig promising just enough reform and the restoration of wounded pride. To that end, MPs chose him because he was and remains “a House of Commons man” – that dread phrase capturing some of the puffed up pomposity of Britain’s Parliament, a self-regarding institution that too often has an ill-deservedly high opinion of itself. This applies to the Commons and the Lords both –  the place combined at its most preening is a mock-gothic fake version of the worst of the 17th century refracted through the prism of the 20th century English schooling system.

Bercow is the personification of the least sympathetic model of grammar school head, wearing a gown, using ten words when one will do, and indulging in public put-downs and sneering that if tried in almost any other working environment would have him hauled in front of HR and given the sack to avoid the staff rebelling or seeking compensation at an employment tribunal.

Of course, there are many excellent MPs and Peers, and there are many dedicated staff in the Palace of Westminster. Some of them like Bercow and others do not. Enormous amounts of productive work – holding the machine to account – is transacted. Cumulatively though, the dragging effect of the building, the sheer weight of history, and the obsessive flummery, leaves an  impression that reeks of inflated entitlement and an institution overdue proper reform.

In that vein, Bercow’s announcement today of his retirement was the signal for more than an hour and a half of tributes to the Speaker from MPs. It was a miserable scene, and his critics opted out probably because they were unable to stand the vomit-inducing spectacle. The House of Commons when it talks of itself and its glories is almost always wholly insufferable.

Bercow’s tenure was not without its considerable achievements, of course. The Executive, in the era of Thatcher and then New Labour landslides, had grown far too mighty. The Speaker fought back and asserted the rights of the Commons to put ministers on the spot, a process made easier when the 2010 and 2017 parliaments were hung, that is no single party enjoyed an overall majority. He facilitated more urgent questions and  emergency debates, with the express purpose of ensuring that ministers should fear the Commons rather than seeing it as a rubber stamp. It was refreshing and positive.

But then came Brexit…

Naturally, speaking as someone who voted to leave the European Union, like many  Brexiteers I’ve been appalled at times by the way in which Bercow stretched the situation to make it easier for those who have frustrated our departure from the EU. Only doing my job to enable debate and scrutiny to take place, he would no doubt respond.

No, my core criticism rests on a huge decision he took that leavers and remainers will, I fear, have cause to regret because it fatally undermines our constitutional arrangements and creates a dangerous precedent that will have consequences. Helping create the Benn bill, which commands a brexit delay was an epic mistake.

Why? At the centre of our constitutional set-up is a vital understanding, until now accepted on all sides, that the Commons and the Executive have distinct roles. The Executive governs, providing a government on behalf of the Queen who is technically only sovereign “in” parliament. It’s a delicate balance.

For good reasons, the Commons cannot be the Executive. It can fire the Executive. It can arrange via no confidence and establishing confidence in an alternative PM to alter the Executive. Or it can force a general election, leading to a fresh parliament and a new Executive.

Britain’s constitution (in urgent need of substantial reform) can take quite a bit of punishment. But Bercow’s facilitation of the Remain alliance and its breaching of this vital convention has created a situation in which the Commons is de facto taking over the role of the Executive, mandating negotiating terms (with the EU) and imposing restrictions on the government’s quite legitimate attempts to negotiate on the country’s behalf. Rather than removing the government, they have neutered the government and dictated the terms of a foreign negotiation.

This is extremely bad news longer term, if a future Commons – pointing to precedent, fearing the verdict of voters and avoiding an election – undertakes to be the Executive again, inspired by the 2019 Remain alliance and Bercow, thus introducing a dangerous argument over what or who constitutes a legitimate government. Democratic consent is at risk.

More likely, the next time a government has a decent majority or a landslide it will – with the Brexit crisis and Bercow in mind – move rapidly and ruthlessly to assert its power and to codify the defence of its own status and to entrench prerogative powers. The Executive fighting back will, at some point, probably go much too far in this regard, because that’s what the Executive with a bureaucracy at its behest tends to do.

Many of us who would once have defended the rights of the Commons will, I suspect, shrug next time a Tory government takes on a Speaker. This Commons went too far and Bercow bears a large part of the blame for allowing it.