CRIMSON TAZVINZWA, AIWA! NO!|Attorney General Geoffrey Cox says “legal risk remains unchanged” in updated #Brexit deal and UK would have no legal means of exiting without EU agreement
In his legal advice on Theresa May’s Strasbourg agreement, Britain’s Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said that new provisions “reduce the risk” of the UK being “indefinitely and involuntarily” held in the backstop, but said that “the legal risk remains unchanged” that the UK would have no legal means of exiting without EU agreement.
He wrote in his legal advice on the Strasbourg agreements: “I now consider that the legally binding provisions of the Joint Instrument and the content of the Unilateral Declaration reduce the risk that the United Kingdom could be indefinitely and involuntarily detained within the Protocol’s provisions at least in so far as that situation had been brought about by the bad faith or want of best endeavours of the EU.
“It may be thought that if both parties deploy a sincere desire to reach agreement and the necessary diligence, flexibility and goodwill implied by the amplified duties set out in the Joint Instrument, it is highly unlikely that a satisfactory subsequent agreement to replace the Protocol will not be concluded.
“But as I have previously advised, that is a political judgment, which, given the mutual incentives of the parties and the available options and competing risks, I remain strongly of the view it is right to make.
“However, the legal risk remains unchanged that if through no such demonstrable failure of either party, but simply because of intractable differences, that situation does arise, the United Kingdom would have, at least while the fundamental circumstances remained the same, no internationally lawful means of exiting the Protocol’s arrangements, save by agreement.”View image on Twitter
Key points:
- PM says she’s secured ‘legally binding’ changes to Irish backstop
- Attorney General Geoffrey Cox to publish his legal opinion
- EU says ‘this is it’ and there will be no new negotiations
- Labour says assurances ‘don’t change anything’ and calls for Brexit pause
- MPs will vote on Theresa May’s amended deal tonight