Brexit: UK’s justice secretary will not quit over international law breach
Justice secretary Robert Buckland has said he will not resign his post after the government introduced controversial Brexit legislation this week that breaks international law.
Buckland said the legislation – which could amount to a breach of the Brexit withdrawal agreement – is only an “insurance policy” and that he believed it would not come into place at the end of the year.
The government’s Internal Market Bill seeks to ensure that the EU cannot block trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain in the case that the UK leaves the EU customs union and single market without a deal on 31 December.
However, it is also a breach of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, as negotiated by Johnson, as it overrides clauses pertaining to Northern Ireland.
Cabinet ministers have admitted that it breaks international law, with Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis telling MPs this week that it does so only “in a specific and limited way”.
Jonathan Jones, the Treasury’s solicitor and permanent secretary of the Government Legal Department, resigned due to the bill.
Buckland told the BBC he was not resigning at present and refused to answer if he would if quit if the controversial legislation came into place on 1 January.
He said: “If I see the rule of law being broken in a way I find unacceptable, then of course I will go. We are not at that stage.”
Buckland added that the government had the right to breach the withdrawal agreement, and international law, if it was in the UK’s interests.
“Parliament is sovereign, it is free to pass laws in accordance with its own procedures,” he said.
“If we get to this stage there will be a conflict between our domestic law position and our international law position, it is the duty of the British government to seek to resolve this conflict as soon as possible.”
It comes as former prime ministers Tony Blair and Sir John Major urged Boris Johnson to U-turn on his plans.
The former adversaries said Johnson’s plan “is shaming itself and embarrassing our nation”, and that his actions will “imperil” the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement.
Writing in the Sunday Times, the pair said: “If the government succeeds in its plans, what constitutional audacity will be beyond it?
“If parliament deliberately passes legislation known to undermine international law, what will that do to the reputation of parliament and our nation?
“As the world looks on aghast at the UK — the word of which was once accepted as inviolable — this government’s action is shaming itself and embarrassing our nation.”