A bill to unilaterally amend the Northern Ireland protocol will not breach international law, the Northern Ireland secretary has said, but he refused to outline what legal advice had been sought or whether the full legal position would be released.
Brandon Lewis said the Northern Ireland protocol bill, which is being published on Monday, was based around “protecting the integrity” of the Good Friday peace agreement. He insisted that when people saw the legislation they would understand it did not breach international law.
Labour, however, said the government was “developing a record for law-breaking” while the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said the plan went against the wishes of people in Northern Ireland and would do “huge, huge damage” to its economy.
Lewis indicated that ministers would release only a precis of the advice setting out the bill’s legality. Asked whether the full advice would be published, he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show that the government would be “outlining our legal position”.
Asked three times whether Sir James Eadie, the senior barrister whose role as first Treasury counsel involves giving ministers independent legal advice, had been asked about the bill, Lewis declined to say.
“I’m not going to get into the internals of government advice,” he said. Pressed on this, he added: “The government lawyers are very clear that we are working within the law. The attorney general [Suella Braverman] will be setting out the government’s position on that tomorrow.”
The bill will unilaterally override elements of the post-Brexit protocol with the EU to try to make trade easier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, something Brussels has warned could spark retaliation.
The hardline Eurosceptic right of the Tory party have put ministers under pressure to take tough action, with MPs having held meetings with the foreign secretary, Liz Truss.
Lewis argued the bill was intended only to safeguard the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which brought peace to Northern Ireland: “What we’re looking to do is to fix the problems we’ve seen with the protocol. It’s about how the protocol has been implemented, the lack of flexibility we’ve seen from the EU over the last year and a half.”
But Labour’s Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, told the Ridge show she was concerned the plan would contravene international law.
“We haven’t seen the legislation yet, but it does look like the government plan to break international law,” she said. “This government seems to be developing a record for law-breaking, and it’s not one that the Labour party can support.
“We helped bring in the Good Friday agreement. We are deeply, passionately committed to it.”
McDonald told the same show that “a significant majority” of Northern Ireland assembly members elected in May backed the protocol, and that it was clear ministers in Westminster aimed to break the law.
“The protocol is working,” she said. “The protocol is the mechanism that gives the north, uniquely, unfettered access to the European market. That is why we see in the north of Ireland, in contrast with Britain, with the exception of the City of London, the economy is strong.
“What the Tory government is proposing to do in breaching international law is to create huge, huge damage to the northern economy, to the Irish economy.”
Source: Guardian
