Order, order, a speaker to bring down Boris Johnson!

John Bercow is probably the most famous speaker of the House of Commons since 1258. His constant and strident calls to order to MPs during the heated debates on Brexit became world-famous, and his small stature together with his colourful and garish tie patterns became an icon of British parliamentarianism, incidentally the second oldest in the world after the one initiated in the Cortes of the Kingdom of León. 

A militant of the Conservative Party since his youth, Bercow proved to be an implacable moderator in the face of the many devious MPs who tried to boycott the debates, which ended up annihilating Theresa May's political career and enthroning a histrionic Boris Johnson at the head of the party and the government. 

Bercow is in the news today for having announced his departure from the Conservative ranks and his integration into the Labour Party. A step that this veteran politician justifies by what in his opinion the Conservative Party has become: "reactionary, populist, nationalist and often even xenophobic". A portrait that Bercow himself does not deny fits the current British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, like a glove. 

It is not in the British political tradition to change sides so drastically, especially between the two major parties that have shared power from the first third of the 20th century until now. In the wake of such a rare mutation, The Observer asked Bercow about the purpose of his decision, to which the former speaker (2009-2019) also answered without much hesitation, stating that ousting Boris Johnson from power is fundamental to upholding the distinctive elements of the greatness of the United Kingdom: equality, social justice and internationalism. 

As soon as this event came to the fore, the most radical members of the Conservative Party, i.e. the most outspoken supporters of Brexit, began to fire their dialectical salvos against Bercow, whom they portray as someone who did not act with due neutrality from his position as Speaker of the House of Commons. 

The hail mary to which the 58-year-old politician will be subjected has only just begun. For example, a report written in 2018 by a former High Court judge in London accuses him of having subjected his staff to constant harassment at work, which is described as "tyrannical". The report does not go so far, at least for the moment, as to directly accuse him of sexual harassment, but it does suggest that, during his ten-year tenure as speaker, Bercow was rather lax in permitting such behaviour towards his subordinate staff, especially women. 

Bercow's radical change of political jacket comes on top of the recent stampede by Dominic Cummings, considered the real brains behind the Brexit political operation. From having been Johnson's guru on the UK's de-anchoring of the European Union, Cummings has gone on to describe the British premier as a compulsive liar with quite clear allusions to a hypothetical alteration of his mental health.  

Cummings, who had left 10 Downing Street last November and remained silent, exploded in April when Johnson tried to hold him responsible for a scandalous leak. He revealed then that the prime minister had tried to stop a parliamentary enquiry into an allegedly favourable tax treatment of a business friend, James Dyson, the manufacturer of the artificial respirators that bear his name. The former whistleblower also denounced the failure of the pandemic policy, which could lead to a second brutal confinement of the population, and accused Johnson himself and his partner, Carrie Symonds, of trying to charge taxpayers for the redecoration of their personal flat.