An agreement between House of Commons speaker John Bercow and Prime Minister Boris Johnson states that the former uses “creativity” in case the latter keeps to the law supposed to preclude Britain being excluded from the European Union at the end of October.
Johnson has sworn to implement the Brexit procedure on Oct. 31, regardless of a deal. He has also stated that he would not demand a postponement to that deadline, regardless of the legal requirement to do this in case he would not receive parliament’s confirmation for the exit.
Bercow has been indicted by the governmnet of trespassing in the sphere of parliamentary rules in order to help lawmakers’ attempts of forcing a postponement to Britain’s exit from the EU. He has claimed the idea of not obeying the law “astonishing”.
“If we come close to being there I would imagine that parliament would want to cut off such a possibility and to do so forcefully,” he said in a lecture to lawyers late on Thursday.
“If that demands additional procedural creativity in order to come to pass it is a racing certainty that this will happen and that neither the limitations of the existing rulebook nor the ticking of the clock will stop it doing so.”
Earlier this week Bercow stated he would resign as parliament’s lower chamber speaker next month. He has occupied this position for more than 10 years. He also said that Brexit would only be implemented in a form approved by lawmakers. He concluded that law breaking would spoil the government’s reputation as it is perceived by the society.
“One should no more refuse to request an extension of Article 50 because of what one might regard as the noble end of departing from the EU as soon as possible, than one could possibly excuse robbing a bank on the basis that the cash stolen would be donated to a charitable cause immediately afterwards,” – he said.