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The full text of the advice, drawn up by attorney-general Geoffrey Cox, was published on Wednesday, a day after MPs voted to find the government in contempt of parliament for ignoring their request for release of the document.
In the six-page document, Mr Cox stated that the so-called “backstop” to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland would “endure indefinitely” until it was superseded by a long-term EU-UK agreement on trade. Warning of “stalemate”, he added that without such a trade deal the UK would not be able to “lawfully exit” the arrangement.
The backstop would keep the entire UK in a customs union with the EU and Northern Ireland within parts of the bloc’s single market unless and until an alternative solution was put in place to avoid a hard border.
Brexiters strongly oppose the backstop, since they believe it would lock the UK into complying with EU rules and trading arrangements.
Mr Cox argued that the risk of being permanently trapped in the backstop “must be weighed against the political and economic imperative of both sides to reach an agreement that constitutes a politically stable and permanent basis for their future relationship”.
But his legal advice acknowledged that the backstop would carry on “even when negotiations have clearly broken down” on a future trading relationship.
He said: “Despite statements in the [withdrawal agreement] protocol that it [the backstop] is not intended to be permanent, and the clear intention of the parties that it should be replaced by alternative, permanent arrangements, in international law the protocol would endure indefinitely until a superseding agreement took its place.”
The note also warned that “in the absence of a right of termination [on the backstop], there is a legal risk that the United Kingdom might become subject to protracted and repeating rounds of negotiations”. [...]
Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)
Exiting the EU: Publication of Legal Advice