Can I break the law....

[Workingman]

.... if only in a "very specific and limited way"?

Asking for a friend.

It is what Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis surprisingly told MPs in the Commons that that is what the UK is doing with an International Treaty. Some of the best legal minds in the country agreed with him and with that Jonathan Jones resigned as one of Whitehall's most senior legal advisers.

The government has now lost six top civil servants this year, including the heads of several departments and the cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill.

The UK is beginning to act like a Banana Republic but without the bananas, well except for those bent blue ones in the Cabinet.

[Suff]

Ah, a banana republic?

Like the US?

If the EU does not like what the UK is doing, then they can either accept it or run the risk that the UK will withdraw from the treaty.

Yes that was withdraw. People, Analists and countries were banging on as if an international treaty was a never ending commitment that could never be withdrawm from. Trump sorted that out.

Did anyone actually read the withdrawal agreement or the "political declaration"? I did, this morning. The political declaration is not worth the paper it is written on, it is a set of aspirational statements made by a government which no longer exists. Just another little piece of reality the press forgets. It was not the Johnson Government with 80 seats majority which signed that agreement. It was a parliament which was majority non government and holding the government to ransom. Johnson gave them what they wanted and they gave him the election. If the parliament doesn't realise the cost of what they extracted last year, then more fool them. Ditto the civil servants who tattled, sold information for power and pulled the rug out from under a sitting government, over and over and over again.

I read the actual, legally binding (so long as we don't withdraw), agreement. It states that the UK has the full sovereign right to carry on legitimate UK based trade, without borders, between Great Britain and NI, within the bounds of the UK.

As far as I can see these moves are already legislated for. It is interpretation which is the problem here.

Page 293 (yes it is over 500 pages long), of that document states:

NOTING that nothing in this Protocol prevents the United Kingdom from ensuring unfettered
market access for goods moving from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom's
internal market,

As for the government aid to businesses? It is in the Political Declaration, which is slightly better than used toilet paper and not worth writing down as it was an aspirational document that stated and "intent" to "align". Not a commitment to be a slave to.

If the EU doesn't like it I'm pretty sure Johnson can round up enough votes to withdraw from the Withdrawal agreement unilaterally. Something, I suspect, will cause more than a little consternation in Brussels.

So there will be a lot of bluster, a lot of noise and a lot of "tough talk", but if they try, just once, to enforce that travesty of political BS, expect us to exit forthwith.

Before Trump, everyone might have said it was not possible. Post Trump? All bets are off.

So, today, we see direct action to put the EU on the back foot. They talk about us blackmailing them with fishing and level playing field whilst having carried out an even greater form of blackmail over NI.

Pigeons come home to roost. One just did. If the whole flock is not to come home at once, it is about time that the politicians wise up to the fact that the UK has a fully functional government with a rarely seen historical majority donated by a population who are heartily sick of just this kind of bollocks. If the people were asked if they wanted to withdraw from that rather radioactive agreement, I'm pretty sure that they could muster up a fairly healthy Yes vote at referendum.

[TheOstrich]

Basically what Suff said, only perhaps a little bit more forcefully!

I am completely fed up with Brussel's posturing. We need to make it clear to the EU that if they will not play ball with us, we will walk away. We are not their lapdogs, we are not their vassals, we are an independent nation. We can hurt them as much as they can hurt us (travel restrictions to EU countries to deprive them of tourism revenue for one, complete and enforced ban on EU fishing in UK waters for another). The EU needs to get real.

So yes, make it clear to them that any so-called International Treaties are there to be rescinded if we ultimately fail to get a fair deal. And please note I said a fair deal, not an EU-favouring deal.

Similarly the US Democratic Party. They can threaten as much as they want, but I am completely sanguine about a no trade deal with the US. No GM grain, no hormone-growth beef, thank you.

[Workingman]

Sorry, both, but it is not about the EU or the withdrawal from or rescinding of a treaty, both of which are perfectly legal when done correctly. It is about the breaking of International Law and by doing of damaging the soft power the upholding of the same provides.

The action the UK is about to take effectively trashes an International Treaty signed in equal partnership. If it does take place it will damage the already dented reputation of the UK on the International stage. It will also damage the trust others have in us at a time of global uncertainty and instability. If ever there was a time that countries and trading blocs needed to work together this is it. We are putting ourselves at risk of being excluded and that risk is totally unnecessary.

I do understand why many of you will want to turn this into a rant about the EU as some of you have never been able to let that go despite "winning", but that is not what I am interested in. I am genuinely worried that where once our word was our bond we will be seen more as the "Perfidious Albion" of our old colonies, but now to a wider audience.

It is not a good position to be taking, in my humble opinion, and certainly not in the current climate.

[Kaz]

I agree with you Frank, it's shameful

[Suff]

Actually my rant is not so much about the EU, as our parliament of 2019, willing to sell us down the river for the slightest gain in their own interest, the civil servants who aided and abetted them and the press who stirred the pot at every opportunity.

I did point out, in my post above, that the state aid is in the political declaration. Aspiration, not law. As for the customs checks and borders, it clearly states that we can run our own trade in NI.

OK there will be some very fine hair splitting and some very judgemental views on this. But there is a simple precedent here. If someone wants to tie you into a treaty which is both unfair and unbalanced, then expect the bound country to do something about it. We are hardly a banana republic. In fact our economy is larger than Russia and our military (deterrent), falls into the class of don't screw with us so is on a par with Russia. Anyone think that Russia would put up with this crap? Or that the EU would even try it?

As for the EU? If a dog cocks it's leg and waters a lamppost it is not vandalism. Of course I expected them to take advantage and no I don't blame them, we have done it over and over again. I blame the people who allowed them to take advantage and it was not Johnson.

However I prophesy this. If those who want to beat this government (EU included), continue down this path, the only eventual possibility is exit from the treaty.

NOBODY wants that but that is right where we are going unless people who should know better stop trying to bind the UK into something they were never, ever, going to live up to.

No it is not all the EU fault. They should never have asked. But WE should never, Ever, have accepted.

[Workingman]

When a Minister of the Crown stands up in the Commons and tells MPs that what the government is about to do breaks International Law, even in a "specific and limited way", and when QCs and leading lawyers agree with him then I am inclined to sit up and believe them over the opinions and interpretations of ordinary people.

I know that some sections of society will not listen to experts, especially when those experts don't agree with them, but I am not one of their number.

This is not an EU thing, it is not a USA thing, it is not a trade thing, it is not a who did what where and when in parliament, the civil service or the media thing. It is that what is currently being done will hurt the UK in diplomatic and policy arenas now and in the future thing.

All this other stuff is tin-foil hat, straw man, howling at the moon and gaslighting thing and I am not interested in any of it.

[jenniren]

Basically what Suff said, only perhaps a little bit more forcefully!

Ditto!!

[medsec222]

Why was it necessary to have a withdrawa; agreement in the first place. Other than tying up financial loose ends and paying what we owe to the EU, once we are a separate entity from the EU we should be like any other country wanting to do a trade deal and our internal affairs should be exactly that.

[Suff]

The Experts you say?

Let us ask the "experts" about the withdrawal agreement. A member state of the EU negotiated an agreement, including trade, independently, whilst still a member of the EU. Without the EU passing either resolution, directive, or law to allow that to happen.

If we were to subject that rather tawdry agreement to the same very narrow and vertical analysis that is being made today, it would be classed illegal.

Beware the experts, they only tell you what they want you to hear.

As for a narrow breaking of international law on a mutual agreement? It's about time the world learned that dealing with the UK in a fashion detrimental to the UK will not be suffered by all following governments. There is precedent for this and just about every government in the world has done it.

So when I hear the breast beating and woes of anguish of people who used their power to overrule the will of the people, I turn a deaf ear. Most of the world, looking in, has been highly shocked that the UK has put up with half of the BS put on us by the EU. The fact that we decide to rebel and overturn patently impossible clauses in an international treaty is hardly likely to shock any nation. In fact, they may actually like the precedent and cite it when they do the same.

I have lived with the garbage of the UK being this little country which can't lead the world for far too many decades. It is time we stand up and be counted and if the international community are stupid enough to think we'll do nothing about this, then that is their look out.

After all, it is not the UK trying to bind the rest of the world into a mould which we can benefit from. That is the EU and certain other areas. We are known for our wish to free trade and compete on a level field. Not a canted field with tariffs which exceed 100% on goods which we can't compete on.

That is what drives my view and not some narrow minded view of the UK being some Lichtenstein with the whole world bearing down on us and not able to even look up in case someone might disagree. If they don't want to trade with us, stuff them. There is plenty of the world that would like to take over the EU trade in goods and services and they're not going to let the 5th (sometimes 6th), largest economy in the world get away on a point of principle on a law which most countries in the world would see as a UK local competence anyway.

Most of the MP's who are complaining about this don't want to leave the EU and think these restrictions will make a return to the EU inevitable. Ditto the press, the civil servants and the "experts". Most of the "people" in the UK just want to get the hell out.

In the Governments position, who would you want to be mad at you? The people who put you in power or the people wanting to push us back into the EU?