Uk politics

There has just been another series of pointed exchanges between government backbenchers and the Speaker over procedure. Following the Sunday papers and the Boles plan released earlier today, several Tory MPs sought reassurance on procedure from John Bercow. Bercow was strikingly unwilling to give it. He approvingly quoted Willie Whitelaw’s dictum that bridges are best crossed when you come to them. If Bercow’s intention was to wind up the government frontbench and Tory MPs, he certainly succeeded. When Bercow gave a lengthy reply to Kevin Brennan’s point of order about how people who act as the lickspittles of the whips’ don’t get much respect, one minister heckled. Bercow then went

Today’s Sunday Times splash – about a ‘coup’ being plotted by Tory rebels to take over Brexit – looks and feels like it was dreamed up in No. 10. It wasn’t and the story shouldn’t be dismissed because of that. The Speaker’s actions last week have changed the calculations: something previously judged procedurally impossible (for rebels to call the shots in parliament) is now a genuine risk. In my view, it risks the very stability of the government. The story so far: that Dominic Grieve and Oliver Letwin are seeking a way to seize control of business in the Commons, so that backbench motions take precedence over government motions. This matters

Before the big vote on Tuesday night, the EU’s 27 government heads will provide greater reassurances – probably in the form of a collective letter to Theresa May, and within the mandate confirmed at the last EU Council – that the controversial Northern Ireland backstop will not and cannot be forever. What does that mean? Well for those MPs agonising about whether or not to support the PM’s Brexit plan, and who think the word of political leaders counts for something, a few votes may move in Theresa May’s direction. And maybe, in the words of one senior British minister, May will be able to frame the letter as being

People are talking about the ugly protests outside parliament as if they are a new and strange phenomenon in British politics. The rough bellowing at politicians. The hollering of the word ‘Nazi!’ at people who clearly aren’t Nazis. The attempt to shout down politicians and journalists who simply want to make a political point. It is all so shocking and strange and un-British, commentators claim. Really? To me, the protests look and sound incredibly familiar. They look like another expression of the nasty, censorious, violent-minded political correctness that has been growing for years in this country. These protests aren’t fascism in action — they’re political correctness in action. All the elements are there. The

John Bercow has been an excellent, reforming Speaker of the House of Commons. He has supercharged backbenchers with greater use of urgent questions, for instance, and has also made Parliament more family-friendly. His pomposity while chairing Prime Minister’s Questions – the endless chiding about what the public might think of MPs’ behaviour, often accompanied with tedious jokes about certain members needing to take ‘a soothing medicament’ – was something even the MPs in question could forgive, given they had a Speaker who was making the legislature bolder. But in the past few months, there has been a shift in the Parliamentary mood. Yes, Bercow still has many supporters on the