Law-breaking deal threat was ‘bonkers’

A FORMER government legal chief yesterday said ministers had permanently damaged Britain’s reputation by threatening to break international law.

Sir Jonathan Jones savaged the ‘absolutely bonkers’ threat to include clauses in the controversial Internal Market Bill which would have broken the terms of the Brexit deal signed by Boris Johnson last year.

He quit as the Government’s top lawyer in September after Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told MPs the legislation would ‘break international law in a very specific and limited way’.

The PM said the clauses were needed to prevent the EU erecting a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK in the event of a No Deal Brexit.

The clauses provoked an international outcry, with the European Commission starting legal action against the UK.

They have since been dropped after ministers struck a deal with Brussels over the future of trade across the Irish Sea. But Sir Jonathan said the ‘damage is done’.

Breaking his silence in an interview with Civil Service World, Sir Jonathan described the Government’s action as ‘quite disgraceful’. He added: ‘There is no possible justification for it, in my mind, this willingness to break the law... I think it’s utterly disreputable. That’s why I resigned. My own view, aside from the legal principle involved, is that it was also just a completely bonkers, and hugely damaging approach, for the policy and the negotiations.

‘What kind of message is it sending, both to the EU but also to all the other countries with whom we want to be negotiating trade agreements or any agreements, that we’re prepared to rip them up if we don’t like them months later? That seems to me to be a really terrible message.’