BBC chases Commons Speaker John Bercow in street for honouring precedent to block Theresa May’s contempt of parliamentary democracy
As the SKWAWKBOX predicted yesterday, John Bercow’s decision to honour parliamentary process by preventing Theresa May returning endlessly to Parliament with the same deal to wear down MPs and run down the clock toward Brexit has put the Commons Speaker in the Establishment’s crosshairs.
All too predictably, the right-wing press has screamed headlines of betrayal and crisis, while Conservative talking heads have spouted endlessly about the lack of trust in Bercow and demanded to know how he ‘dares’ to thwart May’s excuse for a plan.
And the BBC has been little better. This morning, as Bercow tried to get to Parliament to begin his working day, he was hounded by a BBC reporter, repeating a puerile demand to know whether Bercow thought he had made the right decision – clearly he does, or he would have decided differently:
The reporter also questioned Bercow’s decision – on the grounds it has ‘annoyed’ some people – because in January he was attacked for not following precedent when he allowed a vote on Dominic Grieve’s amendment to a motion the government tried to claim was unamendable.
But the common thread in both cases was obvious: democracy.
In January, the government was trying to abuse precedent to keep running down the clock by taking three weeks at a time between votes, to corner MPs into backing a deal they rejected massively – and Grieve’s amendment was to shorten the time taken to a maximum of three days.
And now, May is trying to ride roughshod over democracy by ignoring precedent, to corner and wear down MPs – again by running down the clock while bringing the same awful, dismal deal back over and over again for new votes on exactly the same thing.
The BBC has shamed itself – again. Journalist Ian Fraser called it:
SKWAWKBOX comment:
Bercow honours democracy and has refused to let the Tory government abuse and pour contempt on it. For that, the Establishment intends to make him pay. That includes the BBC – even more dominated by Tories than usual since 2010 – hounding him.
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