I’ve known Speaker Bercow since he was a young man, wore a ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ t-shirt, and was a secretary of the Monday Club – a conservative group so conservative that they’re probably wearing ‘Hang Bercow’ t-shirts today.
By all objective standards Bercow has been a poor speaker of the Commons. What you perhaps don’t know is that is testimony to the chilling effect of laid back liberalism.
Thus, his devastating “pronunciamento” against the prime minister this week has proved wildly popular on the simple basis that anything which devastates this government must be right. But it is wrong.
It’s simply not true that no matter can be brought back in the same form, in the same parliamentary session. If it were, Mrs. May would not have suffered her second defeat on her Brexit plan.
Not having a constitution, as Britain doesn’t, has at least the compensation of flexibility, of adapting to new situations. Of not being hidebound. Speaker Bercow just bound Mrs. May’s hide like it was 1599.
Because there was a new situation. Very new, since her second defeat parliament had taken ‘no deal’ off the table and sought an extension to Article 50, thus postponing Brexit. That’s pretty big news.
Moreover, and consequently, May’s Brexit deal now has a 50/50 chance of going through. That’s a new situation alright!
The English fought a Civil War over that kind of thing not that long after 1604 and long before 1920. It ended with the parting of the king’s head from his shoulders.
Now, I am wholly against Theresa May’s Brexit deal on the simple basis that it isn’t Brexit at all. It is Brexit in name only. I may have been the first to give it a name, BRINO. I may have been the first to state also that I would rather be IN the EU and carry on the fight than OUT of the EU on Mrs May’s terms.
I am wholly against the British government on everything else too. I seek a general election and the sweeping of this gang that couldn’t shoot straight off the stage altogether. But I can’t associate with Bonapartism. And little Johnny Bercow is a “Poundland” Napoleon who isn’t even as nice as he looks. Watch out, sparks are about to fly!