Rees-Mogg accuses Bercow of damaging the standing of parliament to ‘its lowest point’

Addressing the Tory conference in Manchester, the Commons leader said that he has admired Bercow’s parliamentary career but said that he has lately “damaged the standing of the house”.

Rees-Mogg, a Johnson loyalist and arch Brexiteer, enthusiastically backed and excused the recent prorogation of parliament which was later found to have been unlawful.

He told the conference that although Bercow has “helped MPs hold the government to account”, he has nonetheless now “flown too close to the sun”.

He continued: “And I hope that as he comes to his retirement, he will not allow the good he has done in his earlier years to be forgotten.

“But his recent mistakes have, to my deepest regret as leader of the House of Commons, damaged the standing of the house in the eyes of the British public to its lowest point in modern history.”

Also in the speech Rees-Mogg compared opposition MPs, who have the Commons majority, to Lilliputians holding Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver captive.

“We feel a bit like Gulliver being tied down by a ragtag motley collection of feeble fooling feckless politicians, all in desperate pursuit of a single unwrothy aim: to renege on the solemn promise they made to the British people.”