Thread by @pmdfoster

🚨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨NEW: leaked section of Northern Ireland #Brexit bill that I've seen hand ministers massive powers to 'switch off' the Protocol...only 3 articles of the NI Protocol are specifically protected. My latest via @FT w @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber /1
ft.com/content/2286f0…

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber This legislation is far broader in scope that the Internal Market Bill 2020 that the government admitted breached international law in a "limited and specific way"...section 15 of this bill makes clear how broad the powers are.../2

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber Section 15 lists nine very broad criteria for using the powers for switching off parts of the Protocol...

- “safeguarding economic stability”

- and the “safetguarding territorial or constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom” /3

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber - also “lessening, eliminating or avoiding” the difference in tax duties between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

- "ensuring the the effective flow of trade" /4

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber This gives UK ministers the power to 'fix' the protocol on any of these pretexts...for example to end the Irish Sea Border checks; end the State Aid provisions in Art 10, harmonise VAT rates NI to GB.....effectively to gut the Protocol @borisjohnson signed in 20109 at will. /5

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson There is actually nothing, Whitehall insiders say, to stop Ministers over-riding the Consent vote of 2024 that was @BorisJohnson BIG WIN of the post- @theresa_may negotiation. The addition of a consent mechanism /6

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may The irony, or is it absurdity of ministers that battled for a consent mechanism handing themselves the powers to neuter that mechanism either before or after it is used /7

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may The government says it has no intention of doing this.

It says that Section 15 is a technical “insurance” clause to be used as a tidying-up exercise;

Which is exactly the language they used when Internal Market Bill 2020 came out. Same word "tidying up"./8

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may But if the government has no intention of doing something, then why is it handing itself powers that enables it to do that thing?

I only want this loaded legislative gun for a very specific and legal purpose...even though it's a legal howitzer /9

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may Only three sections of the Protocol – Articles 2, 3, and 11 – are specifically protected in the legislation via section 15 (3).

Those articles cover, respectively, the rights of individuals protected by bodies such as the Northern Ireland Human Rights commission; /10

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may - the Common Travel Area which guarantees free movement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland and

- generic North-South Cooperation on issues such as environment, health, agriculture, transport, education and tourism. /11

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may So when Tory MPs say the bill is "damaging to everything the UK and Conservatives stand for" & "breaks international law" they are absolutely right..../12

https://twitter.com/adampayne26/status/1535939822065524736?s=20&t=a_tv2Vq9DYNqy0cSSVgdXQ

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may The only difference between now and 2020 (other than this Bill being far more egregious and sweeping in its scope) is that the government has opinion -shopped for some legal advice that enables it not to have to utter the words/13

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may Of course, as @SirJJQC points out, whatever the UK puts into domestic law doesn't change the obligations in international law. “They signed a binding international agreement and cannot turn off those obligations just by changing domestic law.” /14

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may @SirJJQC I'd recommend reading @davidallengreen on the legal side of this, but the short story is that the orignal legal advice made clear would be very difficult to argue that there was sufficient urgency to justify unilateral action by UK govt /15

https://twitter.com/law_and_policy/status/1534958906794987534?s=20&t=Vhtd1tQSRy9ePsacEJGimw

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may @SirJJQC @davidallengreen So they went to get fresh advice -- as I reported a month ago. This advice was so flakey, it seems, that the so-called Treasury Devil Sir James Eadie was specifically excluded from offering an opinion on it as @SamCoatesSky
@adampayne26 have reported/16

ft.com/content/06d00c…

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may @SirJJQC @davidallengreen @SamCoatesSky @adampayne26 Tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day -- we have become well used to this government saying black is white and white is black, but as some in the Cabinet know, there is serious reputational risk for the UK here /17

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may @SirJJQC @davidallengreen @SamCoatesSky @adampayne26 The craziest part is that even if this legislation passes (and it's expected to take 18 months to get on the statute book if it does) delivering maximalist, unilateral 'fixes' to the issues won't work. /18

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may @SirJJQC @davidallengreen @SamCoatesSky @adampayne26 Because whatever your views on the Protocol, objectively its clear that Brussels, Washington, Dublin won't wear these solutions -- not to mention Sinn Fein. This is all just the same Frostian 'we wont build a border' fantasy rehashed. /19

@FT @GeorgeWParker @jude_webber @BorisJohnson @theresa_may @SirJJQC @davidallengreen @SamCoatesSky @adampayne26 The solution has to be in a middle ground of 'dedramatising' the issues and reaching technical fixes.

FWIW @AntonSpisak - who helped write the Protocol -- has a good run of practical ideas here.

Until tomorrow...ENDS

institute.global/policy/fixing-…