John Bercow is the best bet we’ve got to protect the sovereignty of parliament and the people

The current speaker has his faults, but they have to be placed against what he calls the ‘momentous’ events around us

Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow (Getty)

Probably the best reason to keep John Bercow on as speaker of the House of Commons is that, politics being what they are these days, our MPs probably couldn’t be relied upon to choose a successor.

This is more than a quip. As we discovered with the “indicative votes” on Brexit, the Commons works on a process of motions and amendments, and this is what has been used over the decades, if not centuries, to elect a series of speakers. The MPs do not vote via a conventional ballot paper for the different personalities on offer, but through amendments to a motion. It is not entirely satisfactory, but hasn’t caused great trouble in the past. It might now.

Some speakers thus elected were lazy, some brilliant, some indulged governments too much, some enjoyed a drink, some were teetotal, some were too indulgent about the wayward ways of members, some lonely, and so on.

But they mostly emerged from a reasonably orderly process, presided over by the father of the house (currently Ken Clarke), and, when they started out at any rate, enjoyed consensual support.

On the whole, the main parties got the speakership by turns. Thus did Speaker Bercow, at least nominally Conservative, succeed Speaker Martin, formerly a Labour man.

You can’t really see that orderly transition happening now, and even the convention about the political parties taking turns would now be overlaid by one about different Brexit “parties” – with Mr Speaker Bercow regarded as a personal Remainer (he has admitted as much) being replaced, so the argument would run, by a Leaver, say Jacob Rees-Mogg.

He might be a controversial choice, but so would almost anyone else. It would be another car crash, on top of all the other car crashes that have battered British democracy like a vehicle in a demolition derby.

Speaker Bercow has his faults, of course. Whatever they are, though, they have to be placed against what he calls the “momentous” events around us. An experienced speaker who carries authority is what is needed now, as he sets his own precedents for new times, and, as is his historic duty, upholds the rights of the Commons against those of the crown – in effect HM government and, in particular, the prime minister.

It is Bercow’s job, so to speak, to give the Commons a voice in the affairs of the nation, and he has shown himself to be an outstanding guardian of the rights and dignities of the elected chamber. Of course the executive doesn’t like it, and hates losing control of the legislative agenda. Ministers also find having to win consent for their actions irksome. But that is only right and fitting.

To get to the point, then. The next prime minister will be someone who will, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, be a hard Brexiteer, which is to say someone who is prepared, if necessary, to see the UK leave the European Union without a deal. Fine; but they must do so only with the consent of parliament, and indeed the people. It is quite unthinkable that it could be otherwise.

If it is otherwise, then the notion of parliamentary sovereignty dies, ironically at the very point when leaving the EU is supposed to restore it.

Theresa May tried to argue that, in taking the UK out of the EU on whatever terms she could get, the government was merely carrying out the will of the people as expressed in the 2016 referendum. Delivering Brexit was portrayed as a sacred democratic duty. It still is by all her putative successors. If that doctrine is to mean anything, though, it is that the people as a whole are sovereign, not the Commons, and not ministers of the crown.

That being the case, the people have the right to have a final say on Brexit now. That is a principle that Bercow should also acknowledge. In any case, his position is, in reality, quite secure, an unusual gift at the top of British politics these days.