Thread by @LittleGravitas

1/n

Today's Bingham Lecture: John Bercow, HoC Speaker: themes:

1) Revival of HoC as, not a one-off #Brexit product, but part of a wider renewal of the legislature.

2) What is (& is not) appropriate response to #BennAct?

3) In light of Brexit, a codified Constitution?

[01:13]

2/n

Bercow on Standing Order 14 [suspension of Govt control of order paper]:

"The Standing Orders are not the owned possessions of the Executive...

[They] "are the property of" the House of Commons.

They "can be changed or suspended if the House wills it".

[01:08]

3/n

Bercow:

"What conceivable moral force do public's elected reps have... in prosecuting with greater vigour and relentlessness the fight against knife crime... if we are to treat... of the proposition that it might be in order... to disregard a law enacted by Parl?"

[01:26]

4/n

🔥IMPT!🔥

Parl wd cut off such a possibility of #Brexit through law-breaking, forcefully.

Bercow would assist. Neither the rule book, or time, will stop this.

>>"The only form of Brexit which we will have... will be a Brexit that HoC has explicitly endorsed".<<

[01;38]

5/5

Bercow:

None of this would have happened w unified Constitution.

Royal Commission, or Speaker's Conference?

>>Interim insurance: a Parl Powers Act might be intro'd to entrench HoC authority and to ensure that Rule of Law is never perverted by Exec malpractice.<<

[02:12]