A lawyer’s view of Brexit obligations

UNTIL this morning I have refrained from entering the fray over the Brexit fiasco. What prompts this entrance is Welsh Conservative Brexiteer Nigel Evans’ acceptance on the Tuesday edition of BBC’s Breakfast that the UK must meet the contractual obligations it had agreed to before unilaterally declaring it was leaving the EU.

As a long-since-retired lawyer, some light was shed for me on the debate by the words “contract” and “obligations” where previously there had been none. Assuming that the law of contracts applies as much to treaties as it does to any contract, and that the result is the same whether the applicable law is EU law or “British law” (that is, sadly, English and Scottish law) I see no difference in the consequences that would flow from any breach of contractual obligations whether by treaty or otherwise.

Unless the “British” law of contracts has changed, or rustiness has impaired my thought processes, I see the position following unilateral Brexit as follows:

The UK must pay the damages calculated to be incurred by the other states as members of the EU as a result of its decision to leave the EU having previously agreed to any budgets before that decision was made.

The calculation should exclude any costs in the previously agreed EU budget(s) that are not incurred as a consequence of the UK’s leaving the EU; that is payments that the UK would otherwise have received should be deducted from the so-called “Divorce Bill” as a mitigating factor.

There is no obligation on the EU to agree anything else with the UK that it does not want to agree until this particular issue is resolved. That is to say it does not have to open negotiations on any new trading relationships as a quid pro quo to paying what it owes the EU as calculated above.

I have refrained from commenting on the position of EU nationals here, British nationals in the EU and the Irish question, but because it is also a broader issue, I fear that the UK stance seems to have triggered the rise of nationalism in its most virile and unpleasant forms across Europe: with the news from Germany,of all countries, sadly being the latest manifestation. Derek Griffiths Llandaff