How preening Rumpole sank deal with five deadly words
FANS of Rumpole of the Bailey will probably recognise this quote from their ruddy-cheeked hero: ‘I often think that knowledge of the law is a bit of a handicap to a barrister.’
The same sentiment could be applied to Attorney General Geoffrey Cox after his legal advice scuppered the Government’s deal last night.
Unlike some past Attorneys General, Cox has been lauded for his independence of thinking. He refused to compromise his legal view.
If he had compromised his integrity, he might have earned the undying gratitude of the Prime Minister. For her part, though, commendably, she never tried to bully him into changing his mind.
That said, over the past few months since Cox’s elevation to the Cabinet, this basso profundovoiced lawyer has played to the gallery in the manner of John Mortimer’s fictional creation.
Pleading with MPs and stabbing the air with his finger in the Commons yesterday, we could have been watching a scene from Rumpole and the Last Resort.
But Horace Rumpole would not have engaged, as Cox did, in an unedifying spat with a TV presenter, typing ‘Bollocks’ on Twitter in response to the claim that he’d made up his mind overnight that Mrs May’s deal was legally invalid and had been sent away to think again. What on earth was Cox doing? Instead of firing off an obscenity on social media, he should have been preparing for the most important speech of his life and keeping his judgment for the floor of Parliament, not for Twitter.
As one MP told me: ‘ Sadly, Cox has bought into the idea that he has become some sort of media personality.’
Already, he had revelled in the fact that the extra agreement – or codicil – he was attempting to win from Brussels had been given a saucy nickname in his honour.
‘It’s come to be called Cox’s codpiece!’ he told the Commons. ‘What I am concerned about is to ensure what’s inside the codpiece is in full working order.’
The Brexit crisis, the most serious since the war, was reduced to schoolboy humour. Except not many Tory MPs are laughing.
Worse was to come when Cox appeared to
risk sabotaging the deal in his written statement, saying: ‘The legal risk remains unchanged.’
In the Commons shortly afterwards, though, he said the concessions from Brussels would ‘reduce the risk’ that Britain could be indefinitely trapped in the backstop. His audience was clearly confused whether this was a contradiction or if he was separating the legal risk from the political risk.
And by adding that the decision for MPs was not a political one, but a legal one, he was mixing the two definitions.
One senior ministerial source said: ‘If only he’d written in his statement that “the legal risk was reduced” and made the call to arms for MPs to vote for Mrs May’s deal, we might have got it over the line.
‘He could have gone down in history as the Attorney General who delivered Brexit.’ But he didn’t. Cox had already revealed his unhealthy love of the limelight by telling The Mail on Sunday that he was unlikely to change his legal opinion on Brexit unless he was certain there was ‘no legal risk of us being indefinitely detained in the backstop’.
Pompously, he said: ‘I have been a barrister for 36 years, and a senior politician for seven months. My professional reputation is far more important to me than my reputation as a politician.’
Perhaps if he had taken more care of his reputation as a politician, the country would not be in crisis this morning.
Traditionally, Attorneys General are not in the Cabinet and thus not directly involved in political discussions. This means that whenever legal advice is required, there is no suspicion that the country’s most senior law officer might bend his view to please his political colleagues.
Most notoriously, that was said to have happened in the Labour government when Tony Blair was accused of trying to persuade his Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, to alter his opinion on the legality of the Iraq War.
But Geoffrey Cox, 58, is not the sort of Attorney General who works in the shadows.
An ardent Brexiteer, he likes the sound of his own voice – especially since being the unexpected star turn at last year’s Tory Party conference when he was Mrs May’s warm-up act. LAST week, before heading to Brussels for talks with EU negotiators, he vaingloriously posted online an image of the Duke of Wellington – the victor of the Battle of Waterloo – with the simple caption: ‘ The Iron Duke.’
Wellington secured a victory that has gone down in history. Cox secured a lame defeat.
Cox’s supporters argue that in his legal judgment he had no choice because he had to preserve his reputation at the Bar – the source over the years of lucrative barrister work for himself.
Indeed, legal work will be his livelihood again after his Cabinet career ends – which could be sooner rather than later.
He named his legal practice Thomas More Chambers after Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor.
Famously, More was beheaded for refusing to agree to the annulment of the King’s first marriage.
Thankfully for Mrs May’s Attorney General, courtiers who fail their masters these days suffer a less awful fate. But whatever happens, Geoffrey Cox will pay a high price for his failure.