Brexit: Has Bercow broken Britain?

The news that the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, was going to make a statement at 1530 yesterday was greeted with utter dismay by the Government. They knew what was coming.

Indeed, in a long and rambling statement, Bercow announced that Erskine and May (the rule book on Parliamentary procedure) instructed the Speaker to block any legislation being brought back repeatedly after it had been rejected – as the Government had intended to do for a third time with the Withdrawal Agreement.

Bercow announced that, if the Withdrawal Agreement bill is not in “any way different” or “not substantially different”, the Speaker will not allow the bill to be heard in Parliament once more.

In theory, this means time is up for Theresa May’s Brexit deal unless she secures a substantial development such as a legal change on the state of the Irish Backstop or perhaps amends the bill to suggest a referendum be held to see whether the public want the Withdrawal Agreement as it is.

This does throw an additional spanner in the works of a Parliament which is already made up more of spanners than works.

Nonetheless, the Government have announced they will bring back the Withdrawal Agreement for the third time and defy John Bercow to rule it out of order. Perhaps they are confident that they can make changes that will be, in legal terms, arguably substantial changes.

But before this, Theresa May is due to head to Brussels on Thursday to meet with EU leaders to ask for some kind of extension. It may be the case the Government think that the insertion to the Withdrawal Agreement bill a period of extension is will provide the "substantial change" for which they are searching.

Currently, the legal reality is that the UK is due to leave on 29 March, which is NEXT FRIDAY. Some no-deal advocates are pleased with Bercow's ruling, as they perceive it to mean that no-deal is now more likely if the Government cannot secure an agreement on an extension with the EU and thus cannot again bring back the Withdrawal Agreement to pass and avoid no-deal.

Technically this is true. Also, once more none of these options fundamentally rule out no-deal, in spite of Parliament’s vote last week that indicated they do not want a no-deal in any circumstances.

But the EU doesn’t want a no-deal and are well aware that, if they don’t grant an extension, they could be painted as the ones who made a no-deal Brexit happen.

It is, therefore, more likely than not that some extension will be agreed (in spite of the additional hurdle of it having to be agreed by all 27 EU countries). Ultimately, Theresa May will do pretty much anything to avoid a no-deal, too. While she continues to pretend that no-deal is better than a bad deal, etc, she did not believe leaving the EU was a good idea to start with and absolutely knows that a no-deal would end her government, her party and her own future. But, really, any other outcome might well do all that anyway…