John Bercow may have overstayed his welcome as speaker, but accusing him of bias is unfair

He should give up trying to quieten MPs – it is a great strength of our democracy that the House of Commons is boisterous

Order, order. Honourable members should stop complaining about the speaker of the House of Commons. Conservative MPs think he is biased, either in favour of the Labour Party or against leaving the EU, or both. They should calm down and recognise that, whatever John Bercow’s personal views, he is determined to chair their proceedings impartially.

I say that thinking he should have retired last year. While he denies allegations that he personally bullied his staff, and they have not been proven, he was criticised by Dame Laura Cox’s inquiry for failing to deal with the bullying and sexual harassment of other staff at Westminster. When he was elected speaker in 2009 he said he would serve nine years, so he should have gone last summer with a suitable expression of contrition.

Nor do I like the way he interrupts to tell MPs to be quiet, wasting their time by telling them off for wasting time. I know many people say they disapprove of a boisterous House of Commons, but it is a great strength of our democracy that it is noisy. If we want the sterile tedium of the US House of Representatives, then Bercow could try chucking MPs out if they make any noise at all and see if anyone really likes it. As it is, his pompous interventions are just pointless.

I also think he has gone too far in allowing the Commons to hold the government to account. It was an important democratic advance to increase the number of times ministers are brought to the House to answer “urgent” questions, but I think it is a poor use of a prime minister’s time to keep her for three hours answering repetitive questions after every statement she makes.

Furthermore, there is little doubt that the speaker’s personal views tend towards Labour – even though he was originally elected as a Conservative MP – and against Brexit. Before he was elected speaker he was an interesting politician who was on a long journey away from the ultra-Thatcherite politics of his youth, and it was speculated that he might defect to Labour.

However, that does not mean that Bercow is biased in the way he conducts parliamentary business, or that he could or would use his influence to decide the future of the nation’s relationship with the EU.

There was a fuss last month when he overruled the advice of his clerks to allow Dominic Grieve, the anti-Brexit Tory rebel, to propose a vote to change the Commons timetable. Normally, the timetable is controlled by the government, and such a proposal would be ruled out of order. There was uproar, and MPs raised points of order for an hour to protest.

But the vote went ahead, and the Commons voted to require the prime minister to make a statement within three days if she were defeated in the vote on the Brexit deal – as indeed she was. It was unusual, but the reason the government controls the timetable is that it has a majority in the house. All Bercow did was to allow a different majority to express itself. That is how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work.

The pressure on the speaker is only going to increase between now and 29 March, when the UK is supposed to leave the EU. My view is that Brexit will be decided, at each stage, as it should be, by a majority in the House of Commons. If Bercow makes it possible for a majority to assert itself, he is doing his job.

I think the majority will vote for something like Yvette Cooper’s plan to take a no-deal Brexit off the table. MPs voted against it this week, but only because they were persuaded to give the prime minister one more chance to revise her deal, and that they would have another chance to rule out leaving without a deal.

If the Commons votes for Cooper’s plan at the second or third attempt, it will then face a choice between a version of the prime minister’s deal or delaying Brexit. I think the majority of MPs would vote for Theresa May’s deal in that situation, although I can’t be sure.

What I am more sure of is that, whatever the majority of the House of Commons wanted, Bercow would facilitate it, not try to stop it.