How Damaging Could This Be To Britain’s International Reputation?

[ichkeria]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54003483

[jim360]

OG's post would be reasonable, although the justification provided for breaking the law, and the manner in which it's done, has to stand up to scrutiny itself. In this case there is no such justification: the treaty the Government is intending to break was signed not even a year ago, and was intended to provide for a situation in which trade negotiations weren't completed by the end of this year, so there is nothing that has happened since that was not foreseen or foreseeable.

As an aside, survival is such a low bar. Of course we'll survive, but our reputation as honest treaty brokers would be damaged.

[Togo]

""Under the Vienna Convention on International Treaties if circumstances change and to abide by a treaty would not be in the national interest, a signatory nation may revoke that treaty. As the EU made no attempt to reach an agreement with us, other than to threaten and stonewall until we caved in and agreed to the status quo, which is not in our interest as it cancels at least three national votes including two elections, let us follow international law to the letter and revoke the Withdrawal Agreement.

As for the Political Declaration, it’s a wish list, a statement of good intent, but nothing more and certainly not a binding international treaty. That’s the EU’s mistake and the British team should drive a coach and horses through it."" Adrian Hill.

https://conservativewoman.co.uk/tcws-brexit-watch-johnson-can-indeed-rip-up-the-withdrawal-agreement/

[youngmafbog]

The Remainiacs like Major and Grieve have all been out spouting again.

So for me looks like Boris actually doing something right.

It wont affect our standing in the majority of Nations since many of them are frustrated themselves by the way the EU is protectionist.

[Togo]

May almost had us trapped with the WA. But "old fool" Sir Bill Cash supplied the means to thwart them with clause 38. Had he not engineered it's inclusion we would be over a barrel instead we are in the barrel rolling them back. Clause 38, which in a nutshell, ensures that the Withdrawal Agreement actively encourages 'prevailing UK legislation to replace EU law'. 80 odd year old Bill Cash soft soaped the EUSSR commissars into accepting this without alerting them to exclude the WA itself. Neat or what?

[KARL]

My thoughts go to two stories told me south of the Mediterranean.

From the shore a man is seen struggling in the water so a fellow pushes out his boat and rows out to the guy in the drink. People on shore watch incredulously as he repeatedly swims away from the boat when the occupant is clearly reaching for him. Eventually the boat returns to shore without the struggling stranger. Someone asks the would-be rescuer what he said to the doomed fellow - "Give me your hand", said the boatsman. Then somebody asks if he knows where the drowning sod is from - he's English was the reply.

The one who had asked jumps into the boat and rows back out to the man in the water and upon reaching the man pulls him aboard. On return to the shore the saviour is asked how he had persuaded the man to be saved. Simple, he said, I asked him to take my hand.

The other story is shorter but conveys the same sentiment. It is in the form of advice: Make sure you count your fingers after shaking an Englishman's hand.

While the English routinely assume they are highly thought of the world over, it is very evident they have not been for quite a while (I heard these stories and lots of remarks in many different countries in Africa and across into Asia in the Eighties and into the late Noughties). My expectation is that what many abroad have perhaps only suspected is being confirmed. The Covid debacle has shown the British as their own worst enemy and Brexit is not going to help. This latest thing (OP) merely brings such opinions into sharper focus.

[THECORBYLOON]

TOGO, you wrote, '""Under the Vienna Convention on International Treaties if circumstances change and to abide by a treaty would not be in the national interest, a signatory nation may revoke that treaty.'

What circumstances have changed since the Withdrawal Agreement was signed?

[Togo]

Here is the unedited quote....the one that I posted. There is even a hint in there for you. Add to that the developments caused by the covid "precautions" and financial strain, then ask why the tax payers of Britain should be paying for German largesse throughout the EUSSR for the next 100 years when we would have been out 3 years ago without their delaying tactics? Rest assured that is the reason for the howls of anguish and panic stations being declared by Murkhell and her poodles. They know that Germany cannot pay for it all and no one else in the broken down ponzi scheme can either.....in their eyes that just leaves us to bail them out again and that is what will happen if we let them gerrymander the WA to suit themselves.

/ ""Under the Vienna Convention on International Treaties if circumstances change and to abide by a treaty would not be in the national interest, a signatory nation may revoke that treaty. As the EU made no attempt to reach an agreement with us, other than to threaten and stonewall until we caved in and agreed to the status quo, which is not in our interest as it cancels at least three national votes including two elections, let us follow international law to the letter and revoke the Withdrawal Agreement.//

[ichkeria]

And now and ultimatum and threat of legal action from the EU.
This mess is entirely of the government’s own making. And possibly the inevitable consequence of the last minute deal last gear which saw Boris Johnson cave in to the EU at the last minute.
Not so much an oven ready deal as a half cooked turkey.

[Togo]

After all is said and done there's a lot more said than done.... meanwhile in the cruel hard World of realities the EU has just 38 days to strike a Brexit deal, as Johnson told them. And no, he will not be ‘backing down’ over his plan to change the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol that he’s finally discovered – if at the eleventh hour – never made sense. Remember.. All this boils down to the NI Protocol - back last year Johnson was desperate to get a General Election he knew he would win, but the 'dead' Remain Parliament through the Benn Act would not give him one if there was No Deal. Johnson got the WA and Implementation Period but the Irish Failed State and the EU insisted on the Protocol as well. Here the Cash Clause was crucial, so Johnson got the GE. Frankly, Johnson should have Repealed the WA Act in December but I suppose he though it gave him a year's wiggle room for a proper no strings FTA; it is the EU that won't agree to that, and here we are....politics. Without the covid distractions this would have been implemented months ago and was being discussed behind the bike sheds by the Brexit crew, and out of earshot of the remainiacs, 10 months ago. Every tactic to thwart and delay the results of two votes, that gave resounding support for Brexit, have inch by inch brought us to this. Careful what you wish for indeed.

[THECORBYLOON]

TOGO, the Bill intends among other things to remove the need for checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Ulster.

These are the same checks the PM has been saying for months are not required under the Agreement anyway.

Can you not mind on him saying if folk are asked to complete forms for these goods they should 'phone him and he would tell them to throw the forms in the bin?

If that were true, why the need for the legislation?

[Togo]

Here is another point to consider....particularly if you are Canadian. Remember when the EUSSR and their acolytes and the servile Canadian politicians were crowing about signing up a deal that was a lesson to us? Well the thinkers in Canada have just cottoned on that these magic beans in the EUSSR deal have left them about 4billion dollars worse off than not having a deal......they now realise that it is just going to get worse seeing as how 43% of all their exports to the EU are to( you're ahead of me here again aren't you) Great Britain. Another country stitched up by the EUSSR.....it is all going to crash and burn.

[Togo]

Oh the sweet irony...

// UK attorney general Suella Braverman has attempted to justify giving ministers powers to determine what goods traded between Northern Ireland and Great Britain require exit checks, and to decide when government subsidies need to be notified to the EU in case they breach Brussels regulation.
Braverman admitted these powers would be “incompatible with the withdrawal agreement” if exercised as she took the rare step of publishing her legal advice to the government.
It states that the parliament is sovereign and so can pass laws that breach the UK’s obligations under international treaties, like the WA.
Braverman said this was similar to how Canada, Australia and New Zealand operate, with international treaty obligations only becoming binding when passed in UK law decided by “parliament and parliament alone”.
In an ironic twist, Braverman argued that principle was “recently approved unanimously by the Supreme Court” in the 2017 Miller case, in which judges found that only MPs – not the government – could trigger Article 50 to begin the UK’s departure from the EU.

[jim360]

Strikes me as a horrible (and cynical) misinterpretation of that decision. There's no dispute that Parliament, and only Parliament, can pass whatever domestic laws it likes, but to do so is consistent only in domestic law, and not in international law. If the UK breaches its international obligations -- and, let's be clear, the Government is admitting that its proposed legislation does this -- then it would be in breach of international law and can expect to face the consequences of doing so.

I'm no expert in Constitutional Law, so I'm going to cite the argument below, from someone who *is*:

https://twitter.com/ProfMarkElliott/status/1304076133827309569

I'd also add that the point of International Law is that it's trying to treat all sovereign nations as equally sovereign. It stands to reason that, if two sovereign nations or groups of nations reach an agreement, then for one of them to unilaterally break that agreement is to disrespect the sovereignty of the other. This is why we condemn nations like Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, etc, etc, etc, for being so often in flagrant violation of International Law. Deliberately breaking it in this case is just cynical and wrong, and I seriously hope that it's just a misguided attempt at a bargaining chip.

[jim360]

I'm worried that the EU's retaliation plays into Johnson's hands, in a way -- although I'm not sure why, he's won his election, he doesn't need to keep electioneering. But presumably the expectation now is a No Deal. Hence what looks a deliberate strategy here to break the Treaty obligations, wait for the EU to react strongly, and use that to hang the blame around their neck when nothing happens, No Deal comes, and it does turn out to be as bad as feared.

[naomi24]

//No Deal comes, and it does turn out to be as bad as feared. //

I'm sure you mean as bad as YOU fear. I don't fear it.

[Old_Geezer]

I see the EU has opted to threaten to cut their nose off in order to spite their face. Good luck to the government with the claim of the EU not negotiating in good faith, nor respecting the aims of us being a separate sovereign nation.

[naomi24]

Poor old M. Barnier didn't look too happy tonight. Never mind. :o)

[SpocksBrain]

I may have missed the joke but why are the EU often known as the EUSSR?

[Theland]

If memory serves, did not France break international law/treaty in the eighties, during the Mad Cow Disease episode, when they refused to take British veal, in spite of it meeting all standards of certificated safety?
France used the MCD as an excuse to give advantage to their own farmers.
France is not whiter than white.

[New Judge]

I don't know what the fuss is about.

Any sovereign nation has the right to break free of a Treaty obligation whether it is a year old or a century old. It's one of the things that makes them "sovereign". Alas for the EU it has never quite got round to the idea that its members (or in this case one of its former members) should be able to exercise that right. It's one of the reasons that Mrs May's appalling WA was arguably worse than remaining a member as it contained no provision for us to rescind it without the EU's permission. Well the current agreement seemingly does (if it didn't it would be arguably an "unfair contract") and they need to get used to it.