Thursday, 28 Nov 2024

John Bercow mocks Leavers over Brexit chaos – ‘It’s bad form to blame referee!’

The House of Commons Speaker hit back against criticism Leave supporters who claim he is bias in support of the Remain side in the Brexit debate. Mr Bercow is repeatedly accused of failing to act impartially as the Speaker. He has long been a thorn in the side of Brexiteers and has on many occasions intervened to hinder his own party.

But in a bid to defend himself, he told CNN: “If you are performing badly or you are losing the match, it’s quite bad form to blame the referee.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a Remainer enabler. I would say that I’m an enabler of all colleagues across the House who want to express their different points of view.

“I thought the Brexiteers were in favour of taking back control of Parliament being in the driving seat? Well, they can’t have it both ways.”

Mr Bercow said some of the criticism levelled at MPs was “low grade and vulgar”.

He said: “The idea as a whole that parliament should be rubbished and denounced as though it’s a nuisance and a fly to be swotted is utterly wrong and some of the abuse directed at parliamentarians in recent months has been low grade and vulgar to the extreme.

“I am entirely unmoved by some of the more downmarket attacks on parliament which have been launched in recent times.

“They are unworthy, they don’t amount to a row of beans and I’m not intimidated by them.

“None of my colleagues is likely to be intimidated by them either.”

Mr Bercow was close to tears when he reflected on the death of murdered MP Jo Cox.

He said: “Any death in such awful circumstances is an outrage and a tragedy.

“Yet this death, in this manner, of this person, our democratically elected colleague Jo Cox is particularly shocking and repugnant.

“Really, Jo was a great exponent of that principle of political difference, personal amiability.

“It should be possible for us as democrats for us to disagree agreeably.”

Mr Bercow will step down as Speaker on October 31 – the day Britain is scheduled to leave the EU.

He has long enraged Leave voters who believe he has failed to act impartially when dealing with Brexit.

The Speaker recently told listeners at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival he would “fight with every breath in my body” to stop Prime Minister Boris Johnson from suspending parliament.e or it can gamble on a UK election that makes a no deal Brexit much more likely.”

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