John Bercow has launched a brutal attack on Kemi Badenoch over her performance as Conservative Party leader, saying he feels “embarrassed” for her.
The former speaker and Tory MP said Ms Badenoch is in “deep trouble” following her party’s drubbing in the recent local elections.
He also said that Nigel Farage is trying to “destroy” the Conservatives, and ruled out a partnership between them and Reform at the next general election.
The Tories have now slipped to fourth place behind Labour, Reform and the Liberal Democrats in YouGov's latest voting intention tracker.
Some MPs have also complained privately that their fledgling leader is picking unconvincing lines of attack against Sir Keir Starmer.
During a session of Prime Minister’s Questions in February, Ms Badenoch condemned Labour for recruiting John Tuckett, who lives in Finland, as the UK’s news chief inspector of borders — prompting Sir Keir to respond he had been appointed in 2019 by the previous Tory administration.
In an interview with Saudi news network Al Arabiya, Mr Bercow — who joined Labour in 2021 — criticised Ms Badenoch’s approach to PMQs and called the Tories a “bunch of jokers”
He said: “I don’t wish to be unkind to someone who is already in deep trouble, but Kemi Badenoch I am afraid is completely out of her depth. I feel embarrassed for Kemi.
“When I hear her perform. She speaks so badly. One often concludes it would be better if she didn’t speak at all. She is not in any serious sense a threat to the government.”
Despite Ms Badenoch’s flailing performances, Mr Bercow — who presided over the Commons between 2009 until his resignation in 2019 — said the electorate will never hand Mr Farage the keys to 10 Downing Street.
“I don’t think there will be a coalition between the Conservative Party and Reform,” he said. “Nigel Farage doesn’t want a deal. He wants to destroy the Conservative Party.”
“(Nigel) could be (the next PM) but I don’t think he will be. The electoral system is against him. He has got to have a much wider policy pitch than banging on about Brexit.”
Mr Bercow was praised by MPs from both sides of the House for championing women's rights and sensitive issues by granting debates on topics such as the contaminated blood scandal.
However, Mr Bercow’s legacy was tarnished after he was found guilty of bullying parliamentary staff by the Standards Watchdog and banned from holding a pass in Westminster.
Mr Bercow, who voted remain in the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, was also accused of “unilaterally changing” parliamentary rules by allowing votes on amendments favoured by Remainers to Thersea May’s Brexit deal.
On the UK and the EU’s new agreement setting out post-Brexit relations on areas including fishing rights and trade, which Ms Badenoch has vowed to overturn, Mr Bercow said: “Real progress has been made. All progress is negotiation. The situation is much better than it was before.
“It is all very well the conservative party criticising. That bunch of jokers were in power for 14 years and they made a hideous mess of things.”
He added: “They’ve got a brass neck to grumble that what has been achieved so far isn’t enough. Isn't it enough? Starmer has only been in power for less than 11 months and he has achieved a great deal more in that time than Badenoch and her colleagues were ever able to achieve.
“I think frankly a period of silence from the Conservatives would be suitable and widely welcomed.”
