UK Parliament Ex-Speaker John Bercow, easily recognizable by his trademark “Order!” shouts, will join the ranks of Edward Snowden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Marge Simpson in delivering Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas Message.
In the message, obtained by Metro, the former Speaker will say that “democracy has come in for a pounding” and calls for “personal courtesy.”
“I passionately support parliamentary democracy. For all the criticism and abuse lobbed at MPs, I’m still a cheerleader for them,” Bercow says. However, he calls on the nations and the MPs to “take inspiration from young people” and “try to re-establish a civility of discourse.”
“It would be good for Parliament, for democracy and for our own mental health,” he adds.
The Ex-Speaker, who regularly had to raise his own voice to quell unruly parliamentarians, warns that “an opinion is no more valid because it is expressed more loudly, repeatedly or abusively,” adding that “democracy shouldn’t be about decibel levels.”
Bercow laments that in the current political climate, “there are people who cannot entertain the idea that anyone can honourably hold an opinion which differs from their own.”
He points toward the UK Youth Parliament – an organization for people between 11 and 18, which mimics the work of Westminster – as an example of civilized discussion.
Speaking from a school classroom, the former speaker underlines that the young elected representatives “respected one another and behaved better than many political campaigners two, three and four times their age.”
“This Christmas, I urge that personal courtesy should become our guiding lights in 2020, in the Commons, in our workplaces and in our homes,” he says.
Bercow, who assumed his position as the Speaker of the House of Commons in 2009, resigned earlier this year. During the final part of his tenure, he faced allegations of displaying an anti-Brexit bias. Bercow’s accusers claimed that he ripped up parliament’s rulebook to suit his own political preferences, according to The Guardian.
The Channels 4 Alternative Christmas Message, established in 1993, is an alternative to the Royal Christmas Message delivered by Queen Elizabeth II, which over the years has varied between a serious and a humorous tone. Among the deliverers were comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (1999), whistleblower Edward Snowden (2013), an anonymous veiled Muslim woman known only as “Khadijah” (2006), former President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2008) and cartoon character Marge Simpson (2004). Sometimes the message is delivered by groups of people, such as a group of child survivors of the Grenfell Tower Fire in 2017 and a group of midwives in 2010.