Tag: Geoffrey Cox (British politician)

The UK is “indefinitely committed” to the Irish backstop if it comes into force, the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, has told MPs as he explained to them the legal advice he gave the government on the planned Brexit deal. “There is no point in my trying or the government trying to disguise that fact.” Cox said that the main calculation was the “political imperative” of either entering into the agreement or not. He dismissed suggestions that no other similar treaty existed that would endure so permanently. “There are hundreds throughout the world ... The whole Vienna convention has entire sections on permanent treaties,” he said. But Cox told MPs there was no legal basis in article 50 for the backstop to be permanent and it would be “vulnerable to legal challenge” if it ever came to pass that Northern Ireland remained in both the EU and the UK. In his statement, Cox urged MPs to have patience, saying that untangling 45 years of entangled legal arrangements “will take time to work out”. “The divorce and separation of nations from long and intimate unions, just as of human beings, stirs high emotions and calls for wisdom and forbearance,” he said. He said: “This is not a question of the lawfulness of the government’s action, but of the prudence as a matter of policy and political judgment of entering into an international agreement on the terms proposed.” Responding to demands that the government should publish the advice in full, Cox said that he was offering MPs more than just the text of the legal advice, saying he was giving “a full frank and through opportunity” for him to give his direct legal opinion on MPs’ questions. Ministers earlier released a summary of the advice, which spelled out that the backstop would continue indefinitely “unless and until” the UK and the EU were able to agree alternative customs arrangements.