John Bercow has infuriated Tory MPs by refusing to honour his promise to stand down – but now the decision over his future may be taken out of his hands.

Senior figures at Conservative Party headquarters have held detailed talks about fielding a candidate against the Commons Speaker at the next election.

To challenge a sitting Speaker would break with centuries of tradition, but they have given their blessing to the Conservative association in Buckingham, where Mr Bercow is the MP, to advertise for a new candidate.

John Bercow has infuriated Tory MPs by refusing to honour his promise to stand down – but now the decision over his future may be taken out of his hands because senior figures at Conservative Party headquarters have held detailed talks about fielding a candidate against him at the next election

Unlike most other MPs, Mr Bercow, first elected as the Tory MP for Buckingham in 1997, is an independent.

He left the Conservative Party when he was elected Speaker in 2009. It is a long-held tradition for the mainstream parties to respect the constituency of the Speaker by not standing against him.

Only the Greens, Ukip and an independent candidate stood against Mr Bercow in 2017, and he was elected with a huge 25,675 majority.

There were 2,000 spoilt ballot papers, which is four times the average for other constituencies and a sign of the disillusionment with Mr Bercow among his constituents.

If the Tories stand against him – the party has comfortably held the seat since 1970 – they would almost certainly capture the constituency. This means if there is a snap general election as a result of the Brexit impasse, Mr Bercow could be out of a job much sooner than he expected.

One senior Tory said: ‘As soon as it’s practicable we are going to hit him with everything we have got in our armoury. I know we are breaking with precedent but that is exactly what Bercow does when it suits him, and he hides behind precedent when it doesn’t suit him.’

It is not only the Tories who have turned against Mr Bercow. There are two petitions circulating in his constituency, urging him to name a date to go. One – the ‘Give us a voice – not a Speaker’ petition – has 6,750 signatures.

To challenge a sitting Speaker would break with centuries of tradition, but they have given their blessing to the Conservative association in Buckingham, where Mr Bercow is the MP, to advertise for a new candidate. The decision was taken long before Mr Bercow dramatically announced he was blocking a vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal

When he became Speaker in 2009, he promised that in line with his predecessors he would serve for nine years. This meant he should have resigned last June but grandly announced he would be staying on to ‘see Brexit through’.

The decision to stand against Mr Bercow, described by one senior minister last night as ‘the nuclear option’, was taken long before he dramatically announced he was blocking a vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

In his local association, there is mounting frustration that he has refused to give any indication of when he intends to quit, despite endless requests.

A senior Conservative source said: ‘The voices of more than 75,000 voters in the Buckingham constituency have not been heard in Parliament since 2009.

'Bercow is high-handed and arrogant in the Commons chamber. He is exactly the same in the constituency.

‘We Tories may be divided on Brexit but we are united in our disdain for Bercow.’