Brexit backstop would be ‘practical barrier’ to trade deal

UK - A leaked draft legal analysis produced by the House of Commons library warns that the UK will face ‘a practical barrier’ to striking a trade deal with the US or other non-EU countries if the country falls into the backstop customs arrangements.

The remarks, contained within a draft paper that leaked on Monday morning, emerged hours before the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, was scheduled to brief the Commons about his advice on the Brexit deal negotiated by May. The 27-page document, dated 26 November, says the UK would conform to EU customs rules if it entered the backstop, and adds that this “would be a practical barrier to the UK entering separate trade agreements on goods with third countries.” The Northern Ireland backstop has become the most controversial part of the legally binding withdrawal agreement struck by May with the European Union, because it ties the UK to EU rules in order to maintain an open border in Ireland if no free trade agreement has been signed. Last week, Donald Trump unexpectedly declared he believed that Brexit deal would be “a great deal for the EU” and that the UK “may not be able to trade with us” as a result.

However, during the G20 summit over the weekend, May said the US president was wrong. She said: “I’m very happy to tell President Trump and others that we will have an independent trade policy, we will be able to do trade deals.” Cox is expected to be questioned intensely by MPs as to what his legal advice says about the backstop, amid criticism that the UK could not exit the customs arrangement without the permission of the EU. He will speak to MPs on Monday afternoon, at a time when then government is at risk of being declared in contempt of parliament in a row over the publication of official legal advice on the departure deal. Ministers have agreed to publish only a summary, despite losing a vote last month over publishing the full deal. Downing Street argues strongly that the summary will be sufficient information for any MP to make up their mind on the legal aspects of the deal before the upcoming fiveday debate, and that it keeps to the protocol that full advice is seen as confidential between lawyer and client.

But Labour, which last month won a vote on a Commons motion obliging the release of the full advice, is to join forces with other parties, including the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), to try to pressure ministers to accede to their publication demand, using the ominous, if vague, threat of a contempt of parliament motion. The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, said he believed ministers would be in “really deep water” if they sought to thwart the Commons. “If they don’t produce it tomorrow, then we will start contempt proceedings, and this will be a collision course between the government and parliament,” he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge. (The Guardian)