John Bercow's misinterpreted laugh was a mirthless acknowledgement of the fruitless fight for political reform

Speaker John Bercow has fought a long uphill battle to improve the public image and engagement of Parliament. Photograph: John Bercow by Julian Mason (License) (Cropped)

During the tense and heated Syria debate, the House of Commons was for once at full capacity. The significance afforded to the event saw not only high attendance by MPs through out the day, but also saw Speaker John Bercow chair the entire eleven-hour session (May, 2015).

While Bercow received praise for his uninterrupted chairing of the debate, he also came in for criticism for a laugh, at the debate's end, that seems to have been widely misinterpreted. Those familiar with the habits of Members of Parliament may well have interpreted that laugh very differently.

When the debate on Syrian intervention came to an end, Bercow's announcement of further business in the Commons was greeted with laughter by MPs rising en masse and heading for the exits. Some have considered the moment disrespectful or part of some ill-judged and ill-timed jest (Dearden, 2015).

And yet, considered in the proper context, that laugh tells a different story.

An empty chamber for Parliamentary debates is not an unusual occurrence, with MPs turning up in the Commons only for matters of their own interest, or for the 'big' occasions, only to leave for the 'smaller' affairs (The Telegraph, 2014).

Over the years of his Speakership, Bercow has been actively attempting to reform how Parliament is run and to update its procedures and, in particular, its public image (Parliament, 2011). Yet his criticisms of MPs heckling (Perraudin, 2015; BBC, 2013), or attempts to modernise elections with e-voting as part of a push towards more public engagement (BBC, 2015), have all too frequently run into a wall.

In that light, Bercow's laugh comes across as a knowing, mirthless, exasperation at the behaviour of Parliamentarians - as can be seen in the fuller version events, captured by Parliament's cameras but not included in the broadcast.

"Order. We come now to the petition... [Bercow smiles, forced to pause by MPs noisily abandoning the chamber]... I ask members leaving the chamber, however unaccountably, please to do so quickly and quietly so we can hear the petition from the Right Honourable Lady the Member for Chesham and Amersham."

That petition was, to labour the point, on the "mandatory reporting of child abuse" - not exactly a matter of small consequence.

Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson, is only amongst the latest to run into the not an unusual occurrence of an empty chamber. His debate, regarding out-of-area placements for mental health care appointments (Dickson, 2015), saw a drastically poor turnout of around half a dozen that left Lamb conducting most of the discussion with two of his Lib Dem colleagues.

The archaic institutions of Parliament and the habits of MPs have long been warned of as one source of the alienation felt by the public from politics. The late Charles Kennedy argued that alienating the public from politics was a dangerous venture (2006).

"Fewer people are joining political parties, yet single-issue pressure groups continue to flourish. Mass international movements - from opposition to the war in Iraq to last year's Live 8 - demonstrate how great issues and principles can still motivate on a huge scale. But somehow our current political culture seems unable to accommodate and address such concerns...

...The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger."

These concerns are not confined to Parliamentary institutions. The efforts of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to carry on a project of reform within the Labour Party, has faced resistance by party MPs who, the reformers say, feel their position and power is threatened the proposed changes (McDonnell, 2015).

In his party reforms, Corbyn has said he wants members to have greater power (Boffey & Helm, 2015). Yet, like Bercow, Corbyn is likely to find the establishment difficult to shift - not least when it comes to increasing public engagement by giving the public more direct power within institutions, often at the expense of their representatives (Bryant, 2015).

Speaker John Bercow has fought a long and seemingly fruitless war to reform how the House of Commons works, up against a Parliament that refuses to shake off its disastrous habits. That fact was clearly on display through the Syria debate, demonstrated in full by the treatment of Jeremy Corbyn during his rebuttal to the Prime Minister in the Syria debate, in which he was loudly heckled and shouted down from the government benches throughout (Stone, 2015).

Today, the UK is governed by a Conservative ministry that holds majority power, although it was elected on only 36% of the vote and hold the support of only a quarter of the registered eligible voters.

Tomorrow, the temporary victory of those campaigning for votes at 16 (Jarrett, 2015) - extending voting rights to finally cover all adult citizens - will likely be extinguished by the Conservative majority in the Commons. With its defeat goes another opportunity for reform.

That inequitable situation will not improve until there is comprehensive political reform. Since the establishment seemingly refuses to bow to even the sternest efforts to change its ways, the burden is now upon citizens to take up the campaign.

Establishment figures like Bercow and party rebels like Corbyn, or vocal campaigners for electoral reform like Caroline Lucas, cannot win lasting change with out active support. Corbyn's election as Labour Party leader was one small demonstration of what can be achieved by engaged citizens. But there is still much more to be done - and it can't be left to representatives.

References

Josh May's 'Bercow's 'golden bladder' wows MPs The Speaker stayed in place for the full 11 hours of the Syria debate yesterday'; on Politics Home; 3 December 2015.

Lizzie Dearden's 'Syria air strikes vote: MPs slammed for 'despicable' laughter after vote to take Britain to war: John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, made a joke about further business that was unrelated to the conflict'; in The Independent; 3 December 2015.

'Empty green benches give a poor impression: Debate is just as important a duty of MPs as legislating or sorting out constituency complaints'; in The Telegraph; 7 March 2014.

'Speaker to give speech on improving public perception of Parliament'; from Parliament.uk; 5 April 2011.

Frances Perraudin's 'Speaker backs all-party talks on MPs' behaviour during PMQs: John Bercow says he would welcome discussions to tackle "public disapproval" of confrontational nature of MPs’ weekly clash at prime minister's questions'; in The Guardian; 9 June 2015.

'Speaker John Bercow v noisy MPs in House of Commons'; on the BBC; 4 February 2013.

'Election should include online voting in 2020 - Bercow'; on the BBC; 26 January 2015.

'House of Commons Business: 2 December'; from Politics Home; 2 December 2015.

Annabelle Dickson's 'MPs told of mental health patient treated like a prisoner'; in the Eastern Daily Press; 4 December 2015.

Charles Kennedy's 'How we lost people's trust'; in The Guardian; 4 August 2006.

'Mental Health: Out-of-Area Placements – in the House of Commons'; from They Work For You, taken from Hansard; 3 December 2015.

John McDonnell's 'Labour can be the most powerful force for progressive change in generations: Moving from the old-style politics to a new mass movement is challenging, but we can do it'; in The Guardian; 5 December 2015.

Daniel Boffey & Toby Helm's 'Jeremy Corbyn critics fear ‘revenge reshuffle’ after election boost: Oldham by-election win lifts Labour leader’s confidence, while shadow chancellor McDonnell says MPs should "follow new politics"'; in The Guardian; 5 December 2015.

Chris Bryant's 'Sorry, the role of an MP is to be a representative, not a delegate: Edmund Burke could be a pretentious so-and-so, but he wasn't always wrong, says Chris Bryant'; in the New Statesman; 7 December 2015.

Jon Stone's 'This was Jeremy Corbyn's response when David Cameron called him a "terrorist sympathiser": The PM remained silent to the Labour leader's question'; in The Independent; 2 December 2015.

Charley Jarrett's 'It's time 16 and 17 year olds got the vote'; from the Electoral Reform Society; 4 December 2015.