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.
(And a reminder that “activist lawyers” - doing their jobs - rightly changed the weather, and ultimately the legal system, on the provocation defence for women, on censorship of “obscene” material, and on the possibility that police might lie.)
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
If the current government does accept the stripping out of Part 5 of the Internal Market Bill (that’s the breach of the NI Protocol bit) then the case for putting forward a robust UK subsidy regime grows even stronger.
That is because Article 10 of the Protocol does have “reach back” effects into Great Britain. Any UK or GB subsidy or tax discount that could be said to have potential knock-on effects on NI/EU trade patterns in goods will be caught.
Examples: a UK corporation tax discount benefitting companies active in the goods sector in NI. A Covid-19 loan guarantee scheme applying to all UK businesses.
On subsidy control, note that the solution apparently proposed by the EU is pretty much along the lines suggested by numerous U.K. lawyers expert in the field as a landing place between the legitimate concerns of the EU and the current UK government’s antipathy to “alignment”.
There are some differences between those proposals: but the basic structure of each of them is along the lines apparently now proposed by the EU. The current UK government should now bite the bullet and accept this sensible way forward.
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.
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.
“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.
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.