AP Interview: Ex-speaker Bercow brands Brexit a huge mistake

John Bercow, the former House of Commons speaker who oversaw Britain's bruising parliamentary battles over Brexit, says leaving the European Union would be a historic mistake for the UK, but it's not too late to reverse the decision.

Bercow retired last week after a decade running the daily business and debates of Parliament's lower chamber. In that job he had to be neutral. But he now says that Brexit is the country's "biggest foreign policy blunder" since World War II, an error that will leave Britain weakened economically and diplomatically.

"We're in a world of power blocs and of trade blocs," Bercow told the Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "And it makes more sense for the UK to be part of that power bloc called the European Union and part of that trade bloc called the European Union."
He said "if you add to that the civilizing effect of some of the social legislation that has been ushered in by the European Union, that seems to be to amount to a virtuous combination of benefits for the UK."
"I don't say that (Brexit) will spawn mass poverty, or that we won't be able to get by, find a way to trade and offer some voice in the world," he said. "But I think that we will suffer in trade terms and suffer in terms of global standing and influence."