Backstop will be indefinite, MPS told
It’s worth the risk, says Attorney General as he faces contempt challenge in Commons
BRITAIN will be “indefinitely committed” to the customs backstop with the EU if it comes into force, the Attorney General has admitted, as he faced possible suspension from Parliament for refusing to release the Government’s full Brexit legal advice.
Geoffrey Cox told the Commons the UK will have no “unilateral” right to break off from a customs union with the EU if an alternative solution to the Irish border issue cannot be found. It is the first time the Government has conceded this. He insisted, however, it was a “calculated risk” worth taking.
Mr Cox could face suspension from the Commons for contempt of Parliament after refusing to publish the full legal advice on Theresa May’s Brexit plans, but he insisted yesterday that he would rather be expelled than release the document.
John Bercow, the Speaker, last night decided there was an “arguable case that a contempt has been committed” by the Government over its failure to abide by a motion passed by MPS demanding the full advice be published.
It came after the DUP, Labour, SNP, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Plaid Cymru wrote to Mr Bercow demanding action. Any proceedings could lead to sanctions against ministers including Mr Cox.
Mr Cox told his critics in the Commons it was time they “grew up and got real” over the legal advice and said: “There is nothing to see here.”
However, he said he would accept any sanction: “The House has at its disposal the means by which to enforce its will. It can seek to impose a sanction, I fully accept that. I simply say I cannot compromise the public interest.” Asked by Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru MP, whether he should not “learn from the mistakes of the past” after Labour refused to publish the legal advice it received before the Iraq war, Mr Cox said the two cases were not comparable.
He said that, unlike the Iraq war, “this is not a question of whether the Government acted lawfully; this is simply a question of whether the Government are acting wisely, on which Members of the House can disagree”.
Mr Cox became the first Attorney General for almost 40 years to answer questions in the Commons about legal advice given to ministers, after the Government published a 43-page document setting out its legal position over the EU Withdrawal Agreement.
While it fell short of what MPS had demanded when the Commons passed a motion calling for the publication of the full legal advice, it nevertheless contained plenty of controversy.
Mr Cox told MPS: “Let me make no bones about the Northern Ireland protocol: it will subsist. We are indefinitely committed to it if it came into force. There is no point in my trying, or the Government trying, to disguise that fact.”
The Speaker is now expected to call a Commons debate and vote on whether the issue should be referred to
the House authorities. If the vote is carried, the issue is referred to the Committee of Privileges, which then rules on whether a contempt has taken place.
Punishments can be recommended, which are then put back to MPS to agree. The toughest penalty is expulsion from the Commons.
Mr Cox’s admission represented a significant blow to Mrs May’s attempts to win over more than 100 potential Tory rebels ahead of the vote in the Commons next week.
John Baron, the Brexiteer backbencher, was today due to attempt to end the deadlock by tabling an amendment including provision for a unilateral exit from the backstop.
He proposed to add a sentence to the motion that said it had been passed “subject to changes being made in the Withdrawal Agreement and in the Ireland/northern Ireland protocol, so that the UK has the right to terminate the protocol without having to secure the agreement of the EU”.
Mr Baron discussed the amendment with the Prime Minister yesterday, who “listened with interest”, he said. He told The Daily Telegraph: “I believe this amendment potentially has the ability to end the deadlock because it addresses most people’s concerns on our side and a few people’s concerns on the other side.” If his amendment was passed, it would be up to Mrs May to attempt to use the backing of Parliament as leverage to try and wring the further concession out of the EU.
The Prime Minister will today open the first of five days of debate in the Commons as she seeks to secure the backing of Tory MPS. She will say that the British people “withdrew their consent” for the “pooling of sovereignty” in the EU and argue that her deal “delivers for our country”.
Mr Cox’s position paper revealed that the European Court of Justice would be given a decisive role in whether the backstop should be triggered.
It also said that if Britain was forced into the backstop, it would not be able to sign independent trade deals and would have to accept new EU agreements with third countries.