John Bercow will no doubt make a good a Speaker of the House of Commons but his election to that post could deny his constituents the democratic right to elect their MP. As the role of Speaker is non partisan he or she must resign from their political party but not from their seat in the Commons when they take up the role. Because of this there is a convention that the Speaker is not opposed at General Elections though this has not always been the case.
The position of the new Speaker in relation to his former political party is most interesting. It has become clear in recent days just how much his former colleagues despised him and pronouncements in the Bucks Herald by leading local Tories make it clear that they too had fallen out of love with him. Could it be that John Bercow would have been de-selected by the local Consrvative Party prior to the next election? Could it be that a new Tory candidate will be found to stand against the Speaker at the next election?
Local Liberal Democrats have been going through the process of selecting a new Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Buckingham constituency and will want that process to continue. Doubtless we will have to take advice from party headquarters about whether that new candidate stands against the Speaker at the next General Election but it could prove to be a very interesting situation.