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George Peretz QC Profile picture
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5 Nov, 5 tweets, 2 min read
“Fully respect UK sovereignty” is a chameleon phrase that can mean anything (in a sense, any treaty constrains sovereignty). Both here and elsewhere, Frost’s language leaves open the necessary UK concessions on subsidy control: as I explain here.
See competitionlawinsight.com/incoming/state… for the rest of my piece.
But it is being left very late. With two problems. One is this.
The other is that it simply won’t be possible to get a new and effective U.K. subsidy regime up and running by 1/1/21. So we will have to dust off the May government’s “continuity State aid” proposal to fill the gap before we have a new regime.
All of this could have been avoided if the current government had bitten the bullet earlier and used 2020 to develop its own proposals during the election so as to have a worked through system to put to the EU and get into place. uksala.org/conservative-p…

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More from @GeorgePeretzQC

George Peretz QC Profile picture
6 Nov
For weekend reading (or listening) on law and politics, highly recommend @GreshamCollege lecture by Thomas Grant QC on “the Political Lawyer”. s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/content.gresha… (or listen at podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/gre…).
Great pen portraits of Bram Fischer QC (an inspiration and hero) and Maître Jacques Vergès (not so much).
And a well-justified swipe at Patel and Johnson’s attacks on lawyers for doing their jobs.
Read 4 tweets
George Peretz QC Profile picture
6 Nov
Exactly. And the FTA sought by the U.K. isn’t just about tariffs/quotas. It includes eg fly-in rights for service providers (pretty critical - and a nightmare if not sorted); road transport; etc.
There is a lazy line among some political journos (not Nick) that the difference between no FTA and an FTA along the lines being discussed doesn’t matter much. It does matter.
And if there is no FTA those same journos will be writing stories about UK farmers/service providers/ordinary citizens taking very unwelcome and significant (and in many cases enormous) hits to their businesses and personal lives as a result.
Read 6 tweets
George Peretz QC Profile picture
5 Nov
I agree. @SuellaBraverman’s reply obfuscates and avoids @elliereeves’ point.
Lawyers may - and indeed must - seek legal remedies to which their clients are, or are arguably, entitled if their clients instruct them to do so. It is their duty to do so whether or not that can be seen as achieving political ends. Her answer skirts round that critical point.
@SuellaBraverman’s answer refers to the point that Counsel sometimes rebuked for pursuing politics by other means. That reflects the fact that - in the absence of an arguable legal remedy - the courts aren’t there to decide political questions.
Read 11 tweets
George Peretz QC Profile picture
28 Oct
There are serious issues here for @ChtyCommission: charitable status should not be conferred on lobbyists or political campaigning groups.
The boundary between education (including in political ideas) and campaigning/lobbying can be tricky. But I’m not sure that @ChtyCommission spends enough time defining or policing it.
Charitable status is a form of public subsidy. If you are going to advocate public subsidy for political parties and campaigns, fine.
Read 4 tweets
George Peretz QC Profile picture
26 Oct
This is right: but the reason why Westminster ratchets power to itself is that local government has no constitutional protection. (And - as the IM Bill shows - even the constitutional protection for devolution is a paper tiger when Westminster decides to ignore it.)
If you are going to decentralise in a real and lasting way, you need to remove the possibility - which politicians at the centre will always use - of using legislation to centralise power.
You could do that by a constitutional protection immune to Westminster override. Or you create a sort of Bundesrat - a body largely representing local government - to replace the House of Lords.
Read 4 tweets
George Peretz QC Profile picture
24 Oct
The Protocol expressly provides that NI is in the territory to which the EU Customs Code (including checks and all tariffs apart from cases agreed by the JC) applies, and that that is true “notwithstanding” any other provisions of the Protocol. Article 13(1).
(The text is designed not to reveal its meaning until you check the cross-references: but when you do, that’s what it means.)
NB: if the author of that tweet were right that the Protocol “expressly” prevented a GB/NI border, it is hard to see any reason why the IM Bill would need to contain provisions that allow the current govt to infringe it in order to prevent a GB/NI border.
Read 4 tweets

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