Leading Remainers cheered John Bercow to the rafters this week, with ‘People’s Vote’ architect David Lammy MP among those celebrating the Speaker’s apparent knockout blow to Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
The Labour MP said: ‘The Speaker is absolutely right to block May’s attempt to batter Parliament into a third meaningful vote.’
Meanwhile, Chuka Umunna MP – Lammy’s Labour colleague until he defected from the party last month – circulated messages saying the British public should ‘blame May not Bercow for this catastrophe’.
Their glee was understandable.
John Bercow is pictured here in 2012 for the State Opening of Parliament. He is seen with David Leakey, a senior officer in the House of Lords
At 24, Bercow was a Tory councillor in Labour-run Lambeth, south London. He is pictured on the left in 1990. Today, as the speaker in the House of Commons, he was approached by camera crews for his insistence Parliament cannot put an unchanged deal to a third vote
However, perhaps Lammy, whose father was a West Indian immigrant, and Umunna, whose father grew up in Nigeria, were being admirably generous in their praise.
For had the views Bercow espoused as a young man ever been enacted, it’s highly unlikely either Lammy or Umunna would now be MPs. One might even argue they and their families would not be living in the UK.
The reason? The young Bercow campaigned with neo-Nazis who endorsed an odiously racist policy for black and Asian Britons to be ‘repatriated’ to their ancestral homelands.
Also, for much of the 1980s and 1990s, he was a hero of the far-Right and made outspoken attacks on feminism and gay rights. He endorsed capital punishment, too, and, after becoming an MP in 1997, gained a well-earned reputation for misogyny.
It is no exaggeration to say Bercow has executed one of the most extraordinary political U-turns in Parliamentary history. Nowhere is this more pronounced than on the issue of Europe, where he’s lurched from political extremes, turning from one of the EU’s most outspoken critics into perhaps its most controversial defender.
In these polarised times, this naturally divides opinion. Some will doubtless applaud the path he’s taken. But many colleagues regard it as a cynical manoeuvre by a politician governed by insatiable vanity and an overbearing lust for power and attention.
Speaker John Bercow addressing MPs in the House of Commons today where he has ruled out another vote on Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal agreement
Bercow’s political journey began shortly after his 18th birthday, when he decided to join the hard-Right Monday Club, a controversial organisation that promoted what it called ‘traditional Tory values’ but most notably a campaign against immigration.
After suffering acne and being bullied at school, this son of a cab driver was drawn to politics by Enoch Powell, the Right-wing Conservative whose ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech raised fears of Britain becoming a country where ‘the black man will have the whip hand over the white man’.
Bercow stood for election to the Monday Club’s ruling national executive committee. His manifesto stated ‘the strengthening of our national identity demands a programme of assisted repatriation’ for black and Asian immigrants.
A contemporary, Gregory Lauder-Frost, recalled that although his accompanying speech was ‘very well received’ at its 1982 conference, Bercow failed to win the vote, perhaps due to the fact he ‘rubbed people up the wrong way because he was extremely pushy and rather pleased with himself’. Undeterred, Bercow served as secretary of the club’s so-called ‘immigration and repatriation committee’ for around 18 months.
Minutes he took of one meeting stated that members ‘formally agreed that the policy of the committee should be: An end to New Commonwealth and Pakistan immigration, a properly financed system of voluntary repatriation, the repeal of the Race Relations Act and the abolition of the Commission for Racial Equality. Particular emphasis on repatriation.’
