LONDON — In Britain’s Parliament one day this week, a rising wall of sound echoed around the chamber as lawmakers jeered Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Or cheered him.
The prime minister’s hand jabbed the air for emphasis as he tried to be heard above the noise.
Then came the inevitable, familiar rebuke. In booming if strangled tones, the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, was demanding “Order!” — for almost the last time.
In a decade as speaker that ended on Thursday, Mr. Bercow has silenced legislators this way almost 14,000 times, according to one analysis, as well as chiding politicians in famously antiquated language for “chuntering from a sedentary position” (talking while seated). Sometimes he likened them to mischievous children (“Be a good boy, young man!”).
With Brexit thrusting Parliament onto center stage, Mr. Bercow’s love of the limelight made him a celebrity, the star of a painful political drama that at one point drew more than 1.5 million viewers to the niche Parliament channel on the BBC.
But Mr. Bercow was no mere showman. Some believe he played a unique role in the modern history of Parliament, and — for good or ill, depending on their viewpoint — in the blighted course of the campaign to pull Britain out of the European Union.
The speaker does not just preside over debates, but is the ultimate arbiter of parliamentary rules. That gave Mr. Bercow huge influence at a time when the government had no majority in the House of Commons.
His decision to allow opposition and rebel Conservative lawmakers to pass legislation to prevent a disorderly British departure from the European Union — that is, one without a formal agreement — stretched the rules of the country’s unwritten constitution. Philip Hammond, a former chancellor of the Exchequer who backed the legislation, said Mr. Bercow’s ruling was “crucial in preventing a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31.”
In making the decision, Mr. Bercow followed his guiding principles and championed the rights of backbenchers — lawmakers who are not part of the government and who normally have little or no real influence.
“You have been singularly brave,” Pete Wishart, a member of Parliament from the Scottish National Party, told the speaker on Thursday, praising him for standing up to the government.
Critics take a less benign view, seeing him as a destructive force, a pompous and partisan figure in a job that requires strict neutrality, and so nothing less than a menace to parliamentary democracy.
Perhaps unwisely, Mr. Bercow admitted in 2017 that he had voted against withdrawing from the European Union in the 2016 referendum, though he insisted he was impartial. (To detractors, an anti-Brexit bumper sticker on his wife’s car suggested otherwise.) Then there was his public opposition to the idea of President Trump addressing both houses of Parliament. (Unlike the House speaker in the United States, the British speaker must renounce his or her party affiliation.)
“I don’t think he has been a good speaker,” said Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King’s College, London. “He has tainted the system.”
Mr. Bogdanor praised Mr. Bercow’s efforts to “change the equilibrium in the Commons” and give backbenchers more power — but only to a point.
“That is a good thing in itself, but his decisions seem to have favored remainers,” he said referring to opponents of Brexit. “The speaker should be absolutely neutral.”
That is one of the requirements of one of the most prestigious jobs in the country, a role that dates back more than 600 years and commands a salary higher than that taken by Prime Minister Johnson. It comes with perks like an apartment in the shadow of Big Ben and an entertainment allowance.
How history will judge Mr. Bercow’s reign is unclear. Certainly, he will go down as one of the more colorful occupants of the post.
The son of a cabdriver, he is an outsider who made his way to the top of the British establishment. He is so hated by some fellow Conservatives, who see him as a traitor and as too sympathetic to the opposition, it can be hard to forget that he was once on the extreme right of his party. (Reminded of that on Thursday, he buried his head in his hands.)
At times, he was mocked for his stature (he is 5 feet 6½ inches), but if he ever found this wounding, he appears to have gotten over it. On Thursday, when one lawmaker, Alan Duncan, confessed in an affectionate speech to having referred to him as “Mr. Speaker Hobbit,” Mr. Bercow responded, “I would gently point out that a hobbit is a friendly creature.”
Mr. Bercow won the job at a time when Parliament was reeling from a scandal over the expenses claimed by lawmakers. But while he helped turn the page on that episode, he leaves while faith in Parliament is at a low ebb because of Brexit. Last year there were calls for his resignation following a report about bullying and harassment in Parliament. Mr. Bercow also faced personal accusations of bullying, which he denied.
Of the nine lawmakers who hope to succeed him in an election scheduled for Monday, most say they would do things a little differently, and stay farther from the spotlight.
One candidate, Shailesh Vara, a Conservative, called Mr. Bercow a “playground bully” and said he had “tarnished the role of speaker.”
But as Mr. Bercow left Thursday, the focus was more on his zeal for reform, his efforts to make Parliament more open and family friendly and his support of L.G.B.T.Q. rights. One lawmaker also praised the strength of Mr. Bercow’s bladder and his ability to sit through endless debates.
A somewhat more elevated tribute was paid by John Hayes, a veteran Conservative lawmaker. He described Mr. Bercow as “indefatigable, irrepressible, incomparable,” telling him that he had “brought theater to this place and life and art to your role.”
That brought a response rarely heard over the past decade from the speaker.
“I am almost beyond words,” he said.
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