Bercow's Coup

You have to laugh. I laughed with the joy of one who has just seen order slapped on to chaos. "Some will love thee some will hate thee" so runs the line of the hymn. I love him. The government, and other simpering MP's all joined the whacky chorus of "The people have spoken" so there could be no second bite at this one. Yet when it came to the result of a vote within the House that the government didn't like, all consistency, all logical argument was thrown out of the window without reserve, without a second thought. And like the courtiers surrounding the King with no clothes, no-one shouted "Foul!" or "Hypocrisy!" when a second vote was mooted and then a third.....save good ol' John boy. Except of course he didn't use such aggressive language. He used the language of Parliamentary convention, which is as it should be. Even in much lesser courts, the convention of "No Return to a second vote until reasonable time has elapsed" holds. I think it is 6 months for Kirk Sessions in the Church of Scotland. This is good practice for as well as no immediate return to a decision, there is the sensible conclusion that after some time, minds may indeed change as new evidence or circumstances present, and that a second round of deliberation may be fair enough. But what holds for Parliamentary Business should also then hold for Referendums. (Pedantic note - the Latin has no plural for this word. Consensus has settled on adding an "s".) Moreover, there is also a rule that most committees hold with which says that should there be a vote on something that deeply affects the insititution, such as its constitution or membership, then the vote needs a percentage well over 50% to pass. That certainly should have been the case in the Brexit Referendum.

Some people think that Bercow did what he did in order to hussle a "No deal" situation. I disagree. I believe he well knew that this would gain us the a lifeline of an extension, leading in the end to a softer, trading links continuing, Brexit. I believe that despite the fact that we are all well and truly fed up with this Brexit nonsense, a delay is worth it if we get a deal in place.