Former UK speaker John Bercow suspended by Labour Party after bullying report

The Independent Expert Panel backed a decision to uphold 21 allegations against Mr Bercow

John Bercow was found to be a 'serial liar' and bully by an independent investigation. PA

John Bercow, former speaker of the UK parliament, is being administratively suspended from the Labour Party after being found to be a “serial bully”.

Mr Bercow is under investigation by the party, with a decision on the future of his membership to follow, the UK’s Press Association news agency reported.

The former Conservative MP switched to Labour in 2021 after quitting as speaker in 2019.

The suspension by Labour comes after Mr Bercow was branded a “serial liar” and banned from holding a pass to parliament following an investigation into his conduct.

Parliament's Independent Expert Panel (IEP) said it backed a decision by parliamentary standards commissioner Kathryn Stone to uphold 21 allegations against Mr Bercow from three complainants, all House of Commons staff at the time, relating to the period 2009 to 2014.

Mr Bercow appealed against the commissioner's findings to the IEP but it upheld her verdicts without exception.

The former MP for Buckingham defected to Labour last year, saying he regarded the Conservatives under Prime Minister Boris Johnson as “reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic”.

He had served as a Conservative MP for 12 years until he was elected speaker, a neutral role, in 2009.

Mr Bercow denied that he changed allegiances in a bid to gain a peerage, which is traditionally bestowed upon former speakers, having fallen out with his own party.

Labour's move comes after Conservative MP and former Commons leader Andrea Leadsom urged the opposition party to expel their high-profile member following the publication of the IEP's report on Tuesday.

The Tory MP told Times Radio that Mr Bercow was “incredibly discourteous” to people, and that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer “must expel” him from the party.

“I had pretty much frequent run-ins with him and I saw the way he treated other people,” she said. “I do believe it was unacceptable.

“And, actually, what is so awful about it is that the speaker of the House of Commons is almost the sort of highest authority here, you know, he or she is responsible for behaviour in the House of Commons, responsible for the way that we run things here. And it's just unacceptable.”

Ms Leadsom was Commons leader between June 2017 and May 2019.

The former cabinet minister had a number of public spats with Mr Bercow in the chamber while in her Commons role, including one instance when she confronted him in 2018 over allegations he had referred to her as a “stupid woman”.