John Bercow, the bullying report, and a plot by Remainers to save their Speaker

The Palace of Westminster is a deeply strange place, as developments this week since the publication of an independent report into bullying and harassment in Parliament demonstrate.

The report by Dame Laura Cox is damning. You need not subscribe fully to the nostrums of the “me too” movement, or endorse every criticism, or overlook the reality that many staff work happily in the Commons without experiencing harassment, to see that the problems are profound. The report accumulates such a weight of evidence, and analyses the causes of the malaise so carefully, that the judgment on the management regime of Speaker John Bercow and the handling of complaints by staff is devastating. Brew denies allegations of any personal misconduct.

The former judge concludes: “I find it difficult to envisage how the necessary changes can be successfully delivered, and the confidence of the staff restored, under the current senior house administration.”

Naively, perhaps, I assumed that the publication of this report would bring forward the departure of Bercow as Commons Speaker. In any other circumstances, if say Number 10 or the Cabinet Office or Treasury was criticised in this way in a report such as this, the liberal Bercow and his supporters would surely be calling for statements and advocating instant resignations, justice and change.

Astonishingly, there has been loud and vociferous support for Bercow in recent days, principally from some on the Labour benches, mainly those who want to avert Brexit. Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said this is not the time for a change of Speaker. He will go next Summer.

Bercow’s role is a key sub-plot of the Brexit carnival to come. Remainer MPs simply love Bercow, not just because the bumper of his car features a “bollocks to Brexit” sticker, which it is claimed, naturally, is down to his wife. Justifiably, Bercow has a fair reputation for favouring backbenchers and forcing ministers to account for their actions.

It goes beyond that on Brexit, however. Whether he has encouraged it or not, Bercow has become central – absolutely central – to all the planning being done by Remainers in Parliament to bugger up Brexit this winter, that is by delaying it or even reversing it.

How?

By the potential suspension of the standing orders and the general running of business when – if – the government comes back with a deal, sheer havoc can and will be caused. Bercow in the chair will be a driving force, Remainers hope.

Now, you may think this is bad or good. Personally, as a Brexiteer I cannot see how those battling to restore parliamentary sovereignty can object to an assertive Commons. The executive has done a poor job during the Brexit negotiations and the scrutiny should be thorough.

But that argument should be irrelevant – neither here nor there – when it comes to the Speaker continuing in post. The report by Dame Laura Cox makes it untenable for him to continue in office. In any other walk of life, in a leadership position, he would have been out the door yesterday.

That is not the point, say MPs defending him. Labour’s Dame Margaret Beckett was at least honest in her explanation when pressed by Chris Mason of the BBC on Tuesday evening. As someone who is fairly unshockable when it comes to Westminster, by dint of rapidly advancing years and excessive exposure to my fellow political journalists, I found her comment shocking.

“Yes, if it comes to it,” said Beckett, “the constitutional future of this country, the most difficult decision we’ve made for hundreds of years, yes, it trumps bad behaviour.”

That is nonsense, though. Bercow is not an essential fixture in the constitution. Other MPs from both major parties, Brexiteers or Remainers, are more than capable of taking over the duties of Speaker and acting impartially or at least fairly. Yet that is not enough for those anti-Brexit MPs who want it to be someone they think of as one of their own, who will assist them in halting Brexit. They put that calculation above responding properly to the recommendations in a report about harassment and accepting he must go.

These antics suggest that the Commons, a vital institution, central to the life of the nation, is in deep, deep trouble.

There was a time when I would have rejected such talk and emphasised the glories of Parliament and the mysteries of the constitution.

It was impossible not to love Parliament when I first visited in the early 1990s as a young political journalist, though. Then I was  based in Scotland making day trips keen to forge contacts among the MPs, advisers and ministers. The allure of the Commons – “flood the bar with drink” – was obvious. There were glimpses of history lurking around every corner – Churchill, Attlee, Disraeli, Gladstone, Cromwell – in pictures and statues. Even in the era when Jeremy Corbyn’s chums in the IRA were most murderous, security was light touch. Once a visitor got inside the Palace it had endless rules and baffling traditions. Gossip was the currency, of course, and there were extraordinary sights to be witnessed and conversations to be had. This exciting drama all took place on a mock gothic set in one of the most famous buildings in the world. Here was heaven for a young hack.

In the 1990s I would have got into an argument with anyone who questioned the superiority of the Westminster model and its emphasis on tradition. When the Scottish parliament started in Edinburgh in 1998, as a Scot I hated the self-regard, the sanctimonious Scottish moral superiority complex of the project, the “consensual” vibe and the anti-Westminster semi-circle chamber.

Now, I spend time at Westminster for The Times as a columnist, as a pass-holder popping in to listen and write. I enjoy meeting MPs and Peers there and rarely make a trip during which I do not hear something interesting or have my prejudices and perceptions challenged.

For all that, there is no denying that plenty of us have soured on the place in the last decade. The MPs expenses scandals of 2009 and assorted chicanery sped my disillusion. Simultaneously, what I had seen in my twenties as timeless ritual started to look to me obviously bogus, a dawning realisation which is simply part of ageing, I suppose. The Westminster show is a late Victorian reimagining, a stuffy pastiche, of the 17th and 18th century complete with wigs and breeches. The “modernising” Speaker John Bercow initially did much valuable work after his elevation during the expenses crisis in 2009. He even did away with some of the ritual, donning a schoolmasters gown instead of the old costume. There is still plenty of the flummery elsewhere though.

Which brings me back to Bercow and the need for him to go immediately. The Financial Times, usually mild-mannered in such matters, argues for this in its leader column today. The logic that no leader in business or in any other position of responsibility could get away with presiding over such a situation these days is unavoidable.

I’d argue that the saga, with some MPs defending the indefensible, and Bercow clinging on, is symptomatic and illustrative of the need for the entire set-up – Parliament and our democracy – to be rethought and improved post-Brexit. I’d go for a new Act of Union or constitution, involving an English chamber, an elected upper chamber representing the constituent parts of the UK, along with more powers for the devolved nations and cities. That’s for later. First, the Commons needs to find itself a new Speaker.