Former Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow has dropped any pretence of neutrality on Brexit now he has stepped down, branding it “the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period”.
Speaking to foreign journalists at the Foreign Press Association in London, Mr Bercow said: “I’m no longer the Speaker. I don’t have to remain impartial now, and, if you asked me honestly, do I think that Brexit is good for our global standing? The honest answer is no, I don’t.”
“I think that Brexit is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period, and that is my honest view,” he declared, ranking the British people’s vote to Leave the European Union ahead of such major geopolitical events as the Suez debacle in the 1950s, which marked the end of Britain’s status as an independent world power, right up to Tony Blair’s Iraq War and David Cameron’s military intervention in Libya and support for the Syrian opposition in the Levant, which empowered warlords, slave drivers, and radical Islamic terrorists, helped to spawn the Islamic State, and supercharged illegal mass migration into Europe via the Aegean and Mediterranean seas.
Many folks don’t think you were impartial when you were speaker. https://t.co/47MME40z9x
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) November 6, 2019
The implication that the diminutive politician was impartial while he was still in the Speaker’s chair drew much derision from Brexit supporters and even senior media figures such as BBC interrogator-in-chief Andrew Neil, who remarked: “Many folks don’t think you were impartial when you were speaker.”
Bercow, who was subject to allegations of bullying and using his powers to prevent journalists from investigating possible impropriety by politicians he was friendly with throughout much of his tenure, nevertheless became something of a hero to Remainers during his last months in office, bending parliamentary rules and inventing new precedents — allegedly against the advice of senior officials — in order to help anti-Brexit parliamentarians frustrate the Brexit process.
He was observed arriving at the Palace of Westminster where the House of Commons is based in a car with the personalised registration number plate “BI3RCO” bearing a “Bollocks to Brexit” sticker — but claimed this belonged to his wife Sally, a would-be reality television star whose alleged serial infidelity was a source of many embarrassing tabloid headlines.
Mr Bercow also blocked an address to Parliament by U.S. President Donald Trump, a move which drew criticism from his counterpart in the House of Lords.
OUT OF ORDER ORDER! Sally Bercow snogs hunk…who's not her husband pic.twitter.com/meeRXH6WUr
— The Sun (@TheSun) February 3, 2014
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