Britain’s mostly right-wing newspapers branded parliamentary Speaker John Bercow an obnoxious, despotic traitor yesterday after his bombshell ruling threw the Brexit process into disarray. After Bercow ruled MPs could not vote again on the EU divorce deal unless it was substantially changed, newspapers labelled him the “Brexit Destroyer” and a “preening egotist” bent on stopping Britain leaving.
But editorials in the more pro-EU papers said the dramatic situation, 10 days out from Britain’s scheduled departure date, was entirely Prime Minister Theresa May’s fault and Bercow had been right to assert parliamentary primacy over of the 2016 referendum vote to leave the European Union.
The Daily Mail’s front page was a picture of Bercow grinning, with the headline: “Smirk that says: Brexit be damned.” Its parliamentary sketch said: “Me, me, me...the twitchy windbag was at his despotic worst.”
And its editorial said Bercow, 56, was revelling in a “brazen act of sabotage...detonating this bombshell at the most inconvenient and sensitive moment.”
The paper called him a “preening egotist” and “committed Remainer”.  Blocking a fresh vote on the deal “would ensure that our national trauma goes on and on”. Losing the chance to deliver Brexit and begin healing Britain’s wounds due to “one man’s overweening vanity would be a perversion of our democracy”. 
The Sun, which considers Bercow an “odious slug”, said: “Remainers have their reward for keeping the most obnoxious, discredited and shameless Commons speaker in his job.”
Bercow “scuppered the only one on the table with his most disgraceful abuse of power yet. May is having to fight a Remain majority AND a bent referee”, the tabloid said.
The Daily Express’s front page called Bercow ‘The Brexit Destroyer’. “Bercow stoops low with this Brexit ambush,” its editorial said. “Could John Bercow be the most treacherous speaker ever?”