The lies are unravelling, aren’t they? We’ve had so many from this government it’s time someone in the UK got a Johnson-lie-tracker online. Unfortunately, Peter Oborne’s effort, which was excellent to start with, has fallen behind having not been updated since the 9th December. Of course, the biggest lie of all is that Johnson will get Brexit done. And here is just one reason.
Boris Johnson’s Brexit team has been “ordered” to come up with plans to “get around” the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit withdrawal agreement, the Sunday Times newspaper has reported.
Officials in Taskforce Europe, which is run by David Frost, the prime minister’s European Union negotiator, are seeking to evade Irish Sea checks on goods passing from Britain to Northern Ireland.
The officials believe that Suella Braverman, the new attorney-general, may need to give fresh legal advice to justify the move. Sources told the Sunday Times that Braverman was appointed because her predecessor Geoffrey Cox was not willing to take such action.
Johnson’s cabinet will meet on today to sign off on the proposals, which will then be presented in parliament and published online on Thursday, the report added.
France reiterated once again that it was imperative that negotiations over a future trade relationship between Britain and the EU included customs checks in the Irish Sea. That was the deal Johnson signed up to and sold to everyone.
Johnson struck a divorce deal with the EU last October that leaves the United Kingdom’s province of Northern Ireland inside the UK customs area but all EU procedures will apply to goods arriving there.
It should be noted that the Protocol is an integral part of the Withdrawal Agreement and, as such, has the status of an international treaty. Conformity, under international law, is embodied in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Article 26), which states: “every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith”. This is the doctrine of pacta sunt servanda, translated as “agreements must be kept”. If the agreement is not kept – then the EU will rightly lose all faith that the UK is capable of sticking to any other agreement it may put its signature to in future.
It’ll be interesting to see what Braverman comes up with, what the Johnson team agree to, how the EU will react and how the newspapers will let everyone know just how awful those EU negotiators are for keeping to their side of the bargain!
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Featured image is from TP
