It could only happen in Britain

Basing the future of our country on a parliamentary convention drawn up in 1604 when King James I was our monarch pretty much sums up the unbelievably ridiculous state of affairs we are now in, with just ten days left before what used to be called Brexit Deadline Day on March 29 but probably isn't anymore. Speaker of the House John Bercow, a short man with a tousle of grey/white hair, a voice like a roaring goat and an ego the size of Big Ben, has pronounced that he has checked with Erskine May - the Bible of UK Parliament rules - and Theresa May cannot ask MPs to vote for a third time on her Brexit deal unless it looks substantially diferent. Otherwise, according to Erskine May, it would be a waste of MPs' time. A waste of time ten days before March 29??? What universe is he living in? And the way he pronounced it! With all the relish of the evil Fagin in Oliver Twist. Bercow of course is a Remainer and doesn't want good old Blighty to leave the EU, so this was a masterful device to put the Theresa May government fair and square in a political cul-de-sac with nowhere to go. The 1604 rule goes back way before Thomas Erskine May, 1st Baron Farnborough, constitutional expert and Clerk of the Commons was around. He wasn't born until 1815. But when he wrote his mighty tome about parliamentary rules and guidelines, he included the 1604 precedent and thus it became gospel to be followed by all future Speakers. Theresa May and her advisers knew all about the 1604 ruling and must have guessed that Bercow would bring it up. Yet Downing Street apeared to be astonished and shocked and surprised when he did so yesterday afternoon. Actually May's Brexit deal didn't look substantially different the SECOND time it was put forward to the vote. There were some minor changes about the legal standing of the Irish backstop but otherwise it was substantially the same as the first time it was presented to Parliament when May was defeated by 230 votes. But Bercow didn't intervene then. No he waited and waited and waited and then pounced at the worst possible moment for Theresa, as she was seriously considering trying out her deal for a third time hoping to persuade enough MPs to join her because of the fast-approaching deadline. Perhaps blackmail doesn't get a mention in Erskine May. Anyway the result is that Bercow rules the roost. He will go down in history as the man who brought the government down or made a no-deal Brexit more likely or who saved the country from disaster. Which one of these it will be, we will get to find out in the next few days, or weeks, or months, or years!!