If Commons Speaker John Bercow and the EU bypass the British government to force a Brexit extension, it will be a constitutional outrage: an unacceptable interference with British democracy.
While the President of the European Parliament David Sassoli was in London on Tuesday to meet with the British prime minister to discuss Brexit, he took an unpublicised stop en route. He also met with John Bercow, the supposedly-neutral Speaker of the House of Commons, to discuss how best to frustrate a no-deal Brexit.
The European Union has form for this kind of interference. They’ve rejected referendums in the past in Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and France – either ignoring the result (repackaging the European Constitution as the Lisbon Treaty) or forcing people to vote again. They simply ignored the Greek ‘No’ on austerity. We shouldn’t be surprised at EU attempts to overturn the democratic voice of the people in a referendum, especially given the actions of British pro-EU MEPs – who have attempted to sabotage Brexit throughout.
Never mind the fact that centuries of tradition and precedent demand that the Speaker of the House of Commons remain impartial, a neutral referee of proceedings. Perhaps the president of the European Parliament fails to understand that distinction, given that the European Parliament long ago abandoned any pretence of having a neutral referee.
Throughout the negotiations, the European Union has insisted that the rulebook must always prevail – but they refer only to the EU’s rulebook. They’re quite happy to frustrate the will of the British people and throw the UK’s constitution out the window. The European Union is merely confirming what we’ve known all along: that it only values democracy when democracy delivers an EU-approved outcome.The difference this time is that it wasn’t just a grubby backroom meeting. The EU side are now so emboldened that they didn’t hide the talks. In fact, the president of the European Parliament announced that the encounter had taken place. They even went so far as to put out a press release reporting it. In so doing, they confirmed what we’ve known for a very long time: that the UK can no longer rely upon inscrutable neutrality from our Speaker.
The British people voted to Leave. Never before or since have as many as 17.4 million people voted for anything in the United Kingdom. The mandate is as clear as the desire of some politicians to ignore it. Over 90 percent of our Westminster politicians were elected on a manifesto pledge to deliver Brexit. By Jonathan Arnott, a former independent Member of the European Parliament
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