John Bercow

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John Bercow (2018)

John Simon Bercow [ ˈbɜːkəʊ ] (born January 19, 1963 in Edgware , Middlesex , England ) is a British politician. As a long-time member of the Conservative Party , he gained particular public fame through his work as spokesman for the British House of Commons , especially during the turbulent Brexit negotiations.

On June 19, 2021, he announced his move to the Labor Party .

Since 1997 Bercow was a member of the House of Commons (MP) and from 2001 to 2004 with interruptions a member of the conservative shadow cabinet . He was elected Speaker of the House of Commons on June 22, 2009 , re-elected on May 18, 2010 and has been confirmed in this office several times since then, most recently in 2017. According to the convention, his membership in the Conservative Party had been suspended since 2009. After his resignation announcement in September 2019 and with the election of his successor, he resigned from office on November 4 and also left the House of Commons on the same day through the appointment of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead by the Queen. He then spoke out vehemently against Brexit.

biography

School and study

John Bercow grew up in Finchley , north London, the constituency of Margaret Thatcher . He came from a small background. His father was the son of Jewish immigrants from what is now Romania and worked as a taxi driver. The family name was originally Berkowitz and was later Anglicized to Bercow . The mother came from a Methodist family from Yorkshire and converted to Judaism after marriage. In his childhood, John attended the Reform Synagogue in Finchley, where he received his bar mitzvah , but was otherwise raised secularly and graduated from the Manorhill School , a comprehensive school. As a promising tennis talent (Bercow is a licensed tennis coach), he apparently toyed with the idea of becoming a tennis professional . Bercow, then coached by Bobby Wilson , was the best U-12 player in the country. However, he turned out to be too small to be able to play professional tennis as an adult. According to Bercow's own account, his athletic career was impaired early on by an asthma condition.

He graduated with honors from the University of Essex in Political Science ( First Class Honors Degree ).

Political beginnings

In the 1979 election campaign, he met Margaret Thatcher, who suggested that he join the Torie Youth, the Young Conservatives , which he did. “As a student at Finchley-Manorhill Comprehensive School in Mrs. Thatcher's constituency, I had begun to develop a keen interest in politics, and I was horrified to see how Britain seemed ungovernable. In the ' Winter of Discontent ' the streets were not swept, the sick were not cared for, and the dead were not buried. "

At the age of 18 he became secretary of the "Immigration and Repatriation Committee" of the right-wing conservative Monday Club . “ Powell convinced me that it was right to fear large-scale immigration. This was 1981, the year of the unrest in the city centers ... ”However, after 18 months he left the Monday Club because there were many racists in it, as he later explained.

As a student he took over the chairmanship of the "Conservative Student Association" of the University of Essex, then in 1986 the chairmanship of the "Conservative Student Federation" ( FCS ). The FCS was dissolved by the party executive under Norman Tebbit after their radical antics had embarrassed the leadership of the Conservative Party more and more. Its last chairman, John Bercow, was appointed by Tebbit as vice chairman of the new Conservative College , Conservative Collegiate Forum , with the special task of mobilizing students in the 1987 campaign for the Conservative Party.

Professional activity in business

1987/1988 Bercow worked in the City of London as a credit analyst at Hambros Bank , then from 1988 to 1995 as a public affairs consultant and finally as one of the directors at Rowland Sallingbury Casey, then a subsidiary of Saatchi & Saatchi , an advertising agency that often worked for the Conservative Party was active.

In the London borough of Lambeth he was a member of the local council from 1986 to 1990; from 1987 to 1989 as Conservative Group Vice-Chair, then the youngest UK Group Vice-Chair.

coat of arms

Private life

Sally Illman and John Bercow met in 1989 at a conservative student conference in Nottingham, where Bercow was a guest speaker. Illman supported the Conservative Party as a student and was two more delegates at its party congress after 1989. After that she moved closer and closer to Tony Blair's New Labor , and in 1997 she joined the Labor Party. In December 2002 Bercow and Illman married; the couple has three children.

Bercow has been a supporter of the London football club Arsenal FC since 1971 . He has a season ticket and regularly visits the football team's home games with his son. In 2014 he published a book about the biographies of the twenty most important male tennis players of all time.

Political career

Bercow tried twice to become MP of the Conservative House of Commons: in 1987 in Motherwell South constituency and in 1992 in Bristol South . In 1995 Jonathan Aitken , then Secretary of State in the Treasury, made him his advisor, then he was advisor to Virginia Bottomley , National Heritage Secretary in the John Major government .

In 1996, Bercow ran in two constituencies for candidacy for a House of Commons - in Surrey Heath and Buckingham . Since the nominations were on the same day, he hired a helicopter to fly from Surrey Heath to Buckingham - "the best invested £ 1,000 in my life". He was put up as a candidate in Buckingham and elected to the House of Commons in 1997. He was re-elected in 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2017.

The 1997 election had brought the Labor Party a landslide victory . In the shrunken and rather demoralized faction of the Conservatives, Bercow quickly drew attention to himself with his talent for speaking - he had already run training courses for speakers in previous years.

Iain Duncan Smith became Tory chairman on September 13, 2001 and appointed Bercow to his shadow cabinet . Michael Howard , party chairman from November 6, 2003 to October 7, 2005, had disagreements with Bercow and Bercow resigned from the shadow cabinet. Bercow appeared as a spokesman for the opposition in various fields, e. B. in education policy, in economic policy, in domestic policy and in development policy. He was also active in cross-party working groups (human rights, prevention of genocide). The working group on the subject of brain tumors came about on his initiative. He was a member of the Conference on Parliamentary Representation of Women, Ethnic Minorities and the Disabled.

In 2005, Bercow was named "Opposition MP of the Year" by Channel Four television and the Hansard Society .

Bercow began to have doubts about some aspects of conservative politics in 1999. “In the beginning it was just a single topic. I voted for homosexuals to have a different age of consent than heterosexuals, but I wasn't sure I was right. I decided to think about it first and speak to homosexuals, church leaders, and parents to get their impressions. ... I came to the conclusion that there was no reason for this distinction in legislation, and I said in the House of Commons that I had changed my mind. Then I began to think hard about other topics. ... "

Some observers attribute this development to the influence of Bercow's wife Sally. In fact, in September 2007, Bercow was hired by Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown to investigate government aid for children and youth with language and general communication problems, an issue that Bercow was particularly concerned with because it was also one of his own children concerned. The result was the so-called Bercow Review . The government announced that it would adopt the key recommendations and invest up to £ 12 million to implement them.

John Bercow during a guided tour with US President Barack Obama in the British Parliament, to his left Baroness Hayman , Speaker of the House of Lords (May 2011)

When Bercow was elected Speaker of the House of Commons by mostly Labor MPs in 2009 , he received few Conservative votes, most of whom resented his often recognizable past closeness to Labor. In 2010 he was confirmed in office, although after the 2010 general election the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had a majority.

Speaker John Bercow, who renounced the traditional clothing of the speaker in his office , saw one of his main tasks in carrying out certain reforms in the House of Commons. They related, for example, to MPs' salaries and allowances, the government's accountability to parliament and the discussion of current problems in the lower house. He was known for his characteristic calls to order and for his sometimes humorous and (sometimes unusual for a speaker) direct rebuke from members of parliament for misconduct.

On March 26, 2015, the last day of the House of Commons session before the parliamentary elections , the government attempted to change the rules for re-election of the incumbent speaker by changing the rules of procedure , so that from now on he would no longer be elected in public but in secret . This should prevent MPs who vote against the speaker from having to fear negative consequences. Critics of this plan, who also came from the ruling parties, saw it as an attack on Bercow, which some conservatives accused of disadvantaging their party, and an attempt to prepare for his election. After an emotional debate, the motion was rejected by 228 votes to 202. On May 18, 2015, Bercow was confirmed unanimously as speaker .

In the referendum on EU membership , he voted for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union. Conservative MPs then repeatedly accused him of preferring those in favor of remaining in controversial questions of the parliamentary rules of procedure. Bercow always denied these allegations and assured him that he was only defending the rights of parliament.

In February 2017, Bercow spoke out against inviting US President Donald Trump to speak to the House of Commons on his inaugural visit to the United Kingdom. After the 2017 general election , Bercow was confirmed as speaker .

Bercow ruled out a third vote on the negotiated and already rejected Brexit agreement on March 16, 2019. Referring to inquiries about a parliamentary rule in the rulebook of the House of Commons ( Parliamentary Practice of the British constitutional theorist Thomas Erskine May ), traceable to April 2, 1604, he pointed out that the same proposal could not be put to the vote again without changing the content. Brexit advocates loudly criticized this.

On September 9, 2019, Bercow announced his resignation as speaker on October 31, 2019 or at the end of the legislative period if there were new elections and a newly constituted parliament before October 31, 2019. He gave private reasons for his move. He wants to dedicate himself more to his family in the future. An application by the Prime Minister to hold new elections failed in the House of Commons that same evening.

In an interview with the BBC on June 6, 2020, Bercow regretted that the government (unlike his predecessors) had not made him a peer in the House of Lords after he left office as speaker of parliament . He attributed this to the fact that he “made many enemies” during his ten-year tenure as speaker .

On June 19, 2021, he announced his move to the Labor Party . He explained that the Tories had become “reactionary, populist, nationalist and sometimes even xenophobic”. Johnson's government must be replaced. The Labor Party is the only political force that can do this.

miscellaneous

In January 2019, among other things, a video of Bercow's characteristic, often very loud and drawn-out calls to order (“ Order! ”) From a parliamentary session led by him went viral on the Internet and received worldwide media attention, which earned him cult status .

Works

Web links

Commons : John Bercow  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b theguardian.com June 19, 2021: John Bercow defects to Labor with withering attack on Johnson
  2. ^ A b FAZ.net: John Bercow changes to the Labor Party
  3. ↑ Times Online, May 18, 2010
  4. ↑ Ex-Parliamentary Leader Bercow: Brexit is the biggest mistake since the war gmx.de on November 7, 2019
  5. ↑ Jörg Schindler: 'I'm Just Being Me': British House Speaker Bercow on His Brexit Role. Spiegel online, April 1, 2019, accessed on November 4, 2019 (English, interview with John Bercow).
  6. ^ Jewish News meets the Speaker of the Commons - John Bercow. jewishnews.timesofisrael.com, June 19, 2015, accessed November 4, 2019 .
  7. ^ High Street Ken: Diary. Norton cool on Claudia show. In: The Independent , March 24, 2011, accessed March 20, 2019.
  8. ^ University of East Anglia (YouTube, December 1, 2015): Charles Clarke in-conversation John Bercow
  9. ^ Brian Wheeler: The John Bercow story. BBC News, June 24, 2009, accessed November 4, 2019 .
  10. ^ Conservative Home Platform
  11. ↑ BBC News
  12. ↑ http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/the_tory_right/
  13. ↑ a b c Rt Hon John Bercow MP: 'Biography.' Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  14. ↑ The Rt Hon John Bercow, MP . (No longer available online.) Debrett's , archived from the original on May 22, 2013 ; accessed on July 15, 2019 (English, original website no longer available).
  15. ↑ BBC News
  16. ↑ Department for Children, Schools and Families: The Bercow Review ( Memento of March 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ^ The Daily Telegraph, July 3, 2002
  18. ^ The Daily Mail, Nov. 13, 2009
  19. ↑ Arsene Wenger Deserves Respect! John Bercow, Speaker Of The House of Commons on YouTube
  20. ^ John Bercow: Tennis Maestros - The Twenty Greatest Male Tennis Players of All Time . Kindle eBooks, 2014, 369 pages ( limited preview ).
  21. ↑ BBC News
  22. ↑ BBC News
  23. ^ Department for Children, Schools and Families: The Bercow Review ( Memento June 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). The Department for Children, Schools and Families was dissolved in 2010.
  24. ^ Parliament.uk: John Bercow re-elected Commons Speaker. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  25. ^ The Independent
  26. ↑ Lawyer to oversee Kelly's reforms. In: The Herald , November 4, 2009, accessed March 19, 2019.
  27. ↑ Alex Stevenson (2015): Hague's last defeat: Labor MPs block 'grubby' anti-Bercow coup , politics.co.uk, March 26, 2015, accessed May 18, 2015
  28. ↑ theguardian.com. Rowena Mason (May 18, 2015): John Bercow re-elected as Speaker
  29. ↑ John Bercow told students he voted remain in EU referendum , The Guardian, February 12, 2017, accessed December 5, 2017.
  30. ↑ www.telegraph.co.uk: John Bercow's bid to silence Donald Trump denounced as 'student politics' and damaging to the Special Relationship
  31. ↑ FAZ.net February 7, 2017: Not worth a tweet
  32. ↑ BBC: John Bercow: I'm a tested Speaker for testing times , June 13, 2017
  33. ↑ Third Brexit vote must be different - Speaker. March 18, 2019, accessed March 19, 2019 .
  34. ↑ Dieter Hoß: Rule from 1604 influences Brexit decision. This is what the world looked like 415 years ago. In: stern.de. March 19, 2019, accessed March 27, 2019 .
  35. ↑ Speaker of Parliament Bercow announces resignation. Spiegel Online, September 9, 2019, accessed on the same day.
  36. ↑ Kevin Hagen: Protest, Rebellion, Chaos Spiegel Online, September 10, 2019, accessed on the same day.
  37. ↑ John Bercow: Ex-Speaker 'sorry' not to receive peerage. BBC New, June 6, 2020, accessed June 6, 2020 .
  38. ^ Former Speaker and Conservative MP John Bercow joins Labor. BBC News, June 20, 2021, accessed June 20, 2021 .
  39. ↑ Ellen Barry: John Bercow, Shouting for 'Order' Amid Chaos, Is Brexit's Surprise Star and Villain . In: The New York Times . January 19, 2019, ISSN  0362-4331 (English, online [accessed July 6, 2019]).
  40. ↑ House of Commons Speaker John Bercow: The only winner. In: Spiegel Online. January 17, 2019, accessed July 7, 2019 .
  41. ↑ Jochen Wittmann: Speaker John Bercow: The Tamer of the Shrew. In: Rheinische Presse. January 18, 2019, accessed July 6, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Bercow, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bercow, John Simon (full name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION British politician, member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Edgware , Middlesex , England