Speaker’s Statement

Debate between Bill Esterson and Nigel Farage

Monday 25th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. In the last six months of 2005, the United Kingdom took over the rotating presidency of the European Union, and Prime Minister Blair wanted to make a big success of it. One of his concerns was that there was a young British MEP who was prone to behaving very badly in the Chamber and being particularly rude to visiting Heads of State, so John Prescott was sent to see me. He himself, of course, had served as an MEP and was a big project supporter—he loved everything about the European Union—so he came to explain to me that it would be very bad for Britain if I were to stand up and cause a scene when Prime Minister Blair was speaking. I will not say that he threatened me, but I certainly felt deeply intimidated and behaved myself impeccably over the course of the next six months. That was the bruiser John Prescott perhaps.

A couple of years later, on Remembrance Sunday, when the ceremony was over and the parades had finished, I was walking up Whitehall and there, to my astonishment, walking on his own and without any security, was the Deputy Prime Minister. I said hello and wondered what he was doing. John had seen a group of Arctic convoy veterans on the other side of Whitehall. A seafarer himself, he had gone over to speak to the men who had endured such appalling hardship during the last couple of years of the war, and said to them, “I’m going to fight to make sure that you guys get a campaign medal after all these years, recognising what you’ve done.” They did get the medal, and I got the message. I understood why he had been so phenomenally successful from humble roots: he connected, he got on with people and he was very human. We mourn his passing, but perhaps we also mourn the passing of big working-class characters in politics. We need far more of them.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. As you well know, John had many connections with the north-west of England. He went to school on the Wirral. He was a parliamentary candidate in Southport, and he returned there to campaign in the 2017 general election. He was a seafarer out of Liverpool, and he was presented with a trophy by Anthony Eden, whom the Prime Minister mentioned. The trophy was for winning a boxing bout on board ship, and it was there that he honed the craft that may have led to what he was known so famously for later on.

When I came here in 2010, I bumped into John in the Committee corridor, where he was sitting at a desk working. He said he was there because, despite being a former Deputy Prime Minister, he had to share an office with four other Members of the House of Lords—he had recently been ennobled—and he moaned about the fact that there was no preferential treatment for him. However, despite the moan, he was getting on with the job, as John always did.

My favourite story of him is when, during the 2010 election campaign, the battle bus turned up on grand national day outside Aintree racecourse. He had a campaign to keep the grand national free-to-air on terrestrial TV, and there he was with his loudspeakers haranguing the racegoers to come and sign his petition, which they did in droves. Not only did they sign the petition, but they queued in large numbers for selfies with John. That goes to the point about the affection in which he was held, and the impression that John made that day will stay with me forever.

When I came here and was serving in this place, as he was serving in the Lords, he was a source of terrific advice to me, and I am proud to have counted John as a friend over the years. I send my best wishes to Pauline, David and the rest of his family. May John rest in peace.