Speaker John Bercow has ‘strayed’ from rule of law over Brexit says his deputy Dame Eleanor Laing
- John Bercow has been widely accused of using his position to help Remainers
- His deputy voiced fears that constitutional traditions were being ‘manipulated’
- Dame Eleanor is one of nine MPs in the running to replace Mr Bercow next month
Commons Speaker John Bercow has been accused of ‘straying’ from the rule of law in a withering attack by one of his deputies.
Dame Eleanor Laing suggested Mr Bercow had been ‘aggressive and arrogant’ as she laid out her pitch to replace him in the chair next month.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the Conservative MP said there was a ‘perception that our tried and tested constitutional traditions are being manipulated in order to load the dice in one particular direction’.
Mr Bercow, who voted to stay in the EU, has been widely accused of using his position to help Remainers during the heated Brexit debates of recent months.
Dame Eleanor Laing (pictured) has accused John Bercow of ‘straying’ from the rule of law and hinted he had been ‘aggressive and arrogant’ in the Commons
John Bercow, pictured in the Speaker’s chair yesterday, has been widely accused of using his position to help Remainers during the heated Brexit debates of recent months
‘The Speaker needs to be an independent anchor of our proceedings, unaffected by an allegiance to any political objective or to any party or group within Parliament, upholding our rules and conventions and applying them consistently,’ Dame Eleanor wrote.
‘That principle, the rule of law, has bound this country together for centuries and is the fundamental basis of our constitution.
‘It seems as if we have strayed from these concepts in the recent past and too many decisions have been made behind closed doors.’
In a series of controversial rulings, Mr Bercow has allowed Remainers to seize control of Commons business and hampered Government efforts to pass a Brexit deal.
Earlier this year he described Boris Johnson’s attempted suspension of Parliament as a ‘constitutional outrage’.
Facing possible removal if the Conservatives win a general election, Mr Bercow announced his resignation last month.
Dame Eleanor is one of nine MPs running to replace him, including fellow deputies Sir Linsday Hoyle and Dame Rosie Winterton.
In another barely veiled attack on Mr Bercow, Dame Eleanor said the Speaker needed to ‘set an example of dignified, respectful behaviour’ and said: ‘Aggression and arrogance are deplorable.’
Mr Bercow’s critics have frequently taken aim at what they see as a pompous, grandstanding style of managing the Commons.
The Speaker was back in the spotlight yesterday as the Commons assembled on a Saturday for the first time since the Falklands War in 1982.
Mr Bercow (pictured in London last week) announced his resignation last month – pre-empting a possible plot against him if the Conservatives win a general election
After Mr Johnson lost the crunch vote, the Speaker hinted he could block a Government attempt to bring another ‘meaningful vote’ on Monday.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons, suggested the Government would bring the vote before introducing Withdrawal Agreement legislation this week.
But Mr Bercow has previously ruled that MPs cannot hold repeated votes on the same question.
Citing a precedent dating back to 1604, he ruled in March that then-PM Theresa May could not bring the same withdrawal deal back to Parliament without changes.
The ruling enraged Conservative MPs who accused him of sparking a ‘constitutional crisis’.
Two months earlier he had torn up precedent to allow a procedural vote which damaged Mrs May.
‘If we were guided only by precedent, manifestly nothing in our procedures would ever change,’ he said at the time.