Adam Boulton, editor-at-large

So much for any Christmas truce. Politics in January 2019 is as bitterly divided as it was in December 2018, with no sign yet of any consensus emerging on what to do about Brexit.

No one divides opinions as viciously as John Bercow MP. The Commons Speaker's decision to rule against precedent and allow a vote in parliament which the government then lost has pushed the thermometer way beyond boiling point.

According to The Sun, he is "Speaker the Devil". The Daily Mail comments: "This preening popinjay has shamelessly put his anti-Brexit bias before the national interest and is a disgrace to his office."

Eurosceptic Conservative MPs attacked him for more than an hour on points of order. Adam Holloway complained that the Speaker's lively wife Sally has a "b******s to Brexit" bumper sticker on her car.


Mr Bercow, who seemed to rather relish the row, replied that his wife is "not my chattel". Some months ago he did tell a student audience that he personally voted Remain in 2016.

Not all Tories attacked Mr Bercow. Kenneth Clarke congratulated him, as did the fervent Brexiteer Sir Christopher Chope. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg defended his right to make this ruling, although he quibbled about its consequences. Labour and the SNP congratulated him for trying to break the logjam.

John Bercow hasn't cast a single vote in parliament on Brexit, he has simply given his fellow MPs on all sides a chance to have their say.

But if you think the only thing that matters is that a majority voted to leave the EU in the referendum, then you are likely to think Mr Bercow is a dishonest and biased scoundrel who has broken the rules in his determination to stop Brexit.

It is possible to take a different view of the Speaker's behaviour. For a start it is entirely consistent with the way that he has done the job over the past 10 years - when a majority of MPs have repeatedly chosen to keep him in the chair.

Mr Bercow has always said that he is a champion of the rights of parliament and MPs collectively - not a servant of the government. He has consistently used his authority to force ministers to account for their actions when they have tried to duck appearing in the Commons. He officiously makes sure that all backbenchers have a chance to express their views.

His decision this week to allow amendments to government motions only matters in practice because Theresa May's government cannot command a majority in the Commons. If she had enough votes, she could crush any attempt to push her off course. But she hasn't got them and she can't even rely on the DUP, whose votes she thought she'd bought with more than a billion pounds of taxpayers' money. That's why the government has taken to simply ignoring opposition day debates where it regularly faces defeat.

In the present circumstances - when the main parties are surely divided internally - it surely makes sense to open the door to the opportunity for cross-party alliances to form and take decisions. This is what appears to be happening with Brexit.

This is only a good idea however if you believe in the sovereignty of parliament, like Mr Bercow does. Hard Brexiteers want to cling to their interpretation of the referendum result with no further interference from Westminster.

Image: John Bercow at the State Opening of Parliament in 2013

Some stuffily complain that Mr Bercow has broken with precedent. His reply is that "if we only went by precedent, manifestly nothing would ever change".

In reality, this country is already heading into what Mrs May has called "uncharted waters" thanks in part for precedents being broken on all sides. As the lawyer David Allen Green has pointed out on Twitter, the government side has broken precedent itself many times as it has tried to sideline parliament from playing in a part in Brexit.

Gina Miller and others had to take the government to the Supreme Court to give parliament a meaningful vote on the decision. To make it effective, the former attorney general Dominic Grieve had to lead repeated rebellions in the Commons and win parliamentary majorities for his proposals.

Mr Bercow hasn't cast a single vote in parliament on Brexit, he has simply given his fellow MPs on all sides a chance to have their say. If they agreed with the government, a majority could have backed Mrs May. They didn't. Not surprising perhaps since the cabinet can't even agree what Brexit policy should be.

Mr Bercow is the UK's senior parliamentarian and he is seeking to give parliament control over the most important political decision taken by this country this century. Otherwise, what's the point of spending half a billion pounds a year on parliament?

As it happens, I don't think Mr Bercow should still be in his job. I think he should have stuck to his pledge when elected to serve for nine years. That would have meant retirement last summer. I also think that he can't credibly deliver on his repeated promises to clamp down on bullying at Westminster given the many allegations that have been made about his behaviour. His attempts at reforming the administration of parliament and repairing the ageing building have been messy failures.

Mr Bercow's excuse for staying is that the country and the Commons needs an experienced and confident Speaker at this testing time. I'm beginning to think he's got a point.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Ian King - Pushing drivers to diesel was a fraud that is hitting jobs