Tory Brexiteers Plot to Remove Speaker as Former Deputy Accuses Him of Working in ‘Opposition to the People’

The new Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow is pictured in his office at the Hous
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/AFP/Getty
Victoria Friedman

Allies of Prime Minister Boris Johnson have reportedly called on Conservative Party chiefs to break protocol and field a candidate against John Bercow at the next election over his Remain bias.

Last week, the Speaker of the House of Commons said that Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament ahead of the Queen’s Speech and new parliamentary session — which is procedurally normal — was a “constitutional outrage”.

Mr Bercow, who as Speaker must remain politically impartial, had said that Mr Johnson was “undermining his democratic credentials”, and claimed “shutting down Parliament would be an offence against the democratic process.”

The prorogation would result in less time for anti-Brexit MPs to plot against a no-deal Brexit on October 31st — an outcome that the self-professed Remain-voting Speaker vowed to “fight with every breath”; however, Brexiteers fear that Mr Bercow will side with Opposition and Tory rebels and bend Parliamentary rules in order to allow Remainers to pass legislation to stop a clean exit and force a third Brexit delay.

MPs will return to the House on Tuesday and Mr Bercow is allegedly going to allow the cross-party Remainer alliance a special debate to take over the House of Commons’ agenda on Wednesday, which could enable them to pass a bill stopping a clean exit.

Sources speaking to the Mail on Sunday have said that they are urging senior figures in the Conservative Party to field a Tory candidate in Mr Bercow’s Buckingham seat, breaking the Commons tradition that no major party would challenge the Speaker in his own constituency.

Conservative MP David 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.”

A senior government minister even told the newspaper that Mr Bercow aspires to be placed as interim prime minister if Remainer plans to remove Johnson are successful.

The Speaker’s former deputy — Labour’s Natascha Engel — said her former boss was working in “open opposition to the people, who voted Leave”, writing for the Mail on Sunday that Bercow “is doing nothing less than changing the historic relationship between Parliament as the legislature and the Government as the executive in a fundamental way.

“If he succeeds, it won’t be the Prime Minister proroguing Parliament that will be remembered as a ‘constitutional outrage’, to quote Mr Bercow’s own words last week.”

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