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Attorney General Robert Buckland faces calls to resign over the government’s plans to override international law after another senior legal official, Lord Keen, resigned rather than continue to support the controversial policy.
Downing Street confirmed Keen’s departure as Scottish Counsel General. In his letter of resignation, he said that he was “finding it increasingly difficult to reconcile what I consider to be my duties as a law enforcement officer with his political intentions.”
It came a week after the government’s top legal official, Jonathan Jones, resigned and put the spotlight on Buckland, who is also chancellor, and on the attorney general, Suella Braverman.
A conservative source close to Keen said he had offered to resign after clashing with Braverman during a private discussion they had Tuesday night about the domestic market bill.
The Guardian revealed last week that a rift had emerged between the two after Keen said he believed the government’s attempt to overturn the EU withdrawal treaty would put ministers in violation of the ministerial code. Braverman and Michael Ellis, the attorney general, insisted that the ministerial code only covered breaches of UK law.
Questions and answers
What is the UK Internal Market Law?
The Internal Market Bill aims to enforce compatible rules and regulations regarding trade in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Some rules, for example around food safety or air quality, which were previously established by EU agreements, will now be controlled by decentralized administrations or Westminster. The internal market bill insists that decentralized administrations must accept goods and services from all nations of the UK, even if their standards differ locally.
This, the government says, is in part to ensure international traders have access to the UK as a whole, relying on the standards and rules to be consistent.
The Scottish government has criticized it as a Westminster “takeover”, and the Welsh government has expressed fear that it will lead to a race to the bottom. If one of the countries that make up the United Kingdom lowers its standards, for example on the importation of chlorinated chicken, the other three nations will have to accept chlorinated chicken as well.
It has become even more controversial because one of its main goals is to empower ministers to pass regulations even if they are contrary to the withdrawal agreement reached with the EU under the Northern Ireland protocol.
The text does not disguise its intention, stating that the powers contained in the bill “have effect without prejudice to any relevant international or national law with which they may be incompatible or incompatible.”
Martin Belam and Owen bowcott
Buckland was pressured Wednesday on whether he should resign, rather than support legislation that gives ministers the powers to circumvent the withdrawal agreement, an international treaty. He said he would do so only if the law had been violated “in a way that cannot be tampered with.” He told Sky News that the government was not yet at that stage.
Dominic Grieve, a former conservative attorney general, called on Buckland and Braverman to resign, rather than support legislation that violates international law.
Grieve told The Guardian: “The attorney general appears to be an enthusiastic defender of this completely distorted view of international law. She and Ellis do not appear to have provided any legal precedent for their comments on [breaking] international law in its [advice to the government].
“I am afraid I believe that the Chancellor’s position is even clearer. Take an oath to defend or protect the rule of law. The rule of law includes international law.
“Although I have some sympathy for the former colleagues for the position they have held, I think [Buckland’s] The position is untenable. I’m afraid he should have resigned the day the bill was published. You may have decided to stay and try to moderate [the government’s position]. I can understand that from a moral position, but I think that’s wrong. “
Former Conservative Attorney General Lord Garnier praised Keen for taking an honorable course of action and asked Braverman, Ellis and Buckland to consider their positions.
“I have wondered why legal officers are still in office,” he told The Guardian. “Richard Keen has fought hard to make the government behave. It has been an unequal fight. I applaud you for what you have tried to do. You have done the right thing now by resigning. I hope that Richard Keen’s departure will make the AG [attorney general], the attorney general and the chancellor carefully observe their positions. “
Joanna Cherry, senior attorney and justice spokesperson for the Scottish National Party in Westminster, said Keen finally did the right thing by offering to resign, but that it exposed the six Scottish Conservatives who voted on the measures earlier this week to new questions.
“No Scottish law enforcement officer could reconcile Boris Johnson and his government’s lack of regard for the rule of law with their obligation as an officer of the Scottish courts,” he said.
“It shows, once again, that this conservative government cannot be trusted. And it leaves Douglas Ross and the six Scottish Conservative MPs who voted for the bill totally exposed and in an absolutely untenable position. “
Ross, the new leader of the Conservatives in Scotland, had previously tried to distance himself from Downing Street, resigning as minister in the summer in protest at Dominic Cummings’ closure in Durham.
Shadow Attorney General Lord Falconer said: “The Chancellor is a decent person and a good lawyer. Lord Keen and Jonathan Jones, both serious lawyers are gone. The Lord Chancellor cannot stand by and expect to be taken as a serious lawyer. “
Keen’s resignation followed irritating exchanges with Falconer about the legislation, during which Keen suggested that Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis had “answered the wrong question” when he said the bill would violate the law.
Lewis flatly contradicted him on Wednesday, telling MPs on the Northern Ireland affairs committee: “I spoke with Lord Keen when he looked at the specific question that I was asked last week. You have agreed with me that the answer I gave was correct. That answer I gave reflects the government’s legal advice. “
No source suggested Keen had been close to resigning for several days and said he did not speak to the prime minister on Wednesday.
His departure came despite Downing Street reaching a deal with conservative rebels who refused to back the internal markets bill at its second reading on Monday, and an insistence by the prime minister that he was simply taking an approach. of “belt and suspenders” in the Brexit negotiations. .
The Guardian understands that Keen had previously told his friends that he would stay to “stabilize the ship.” One ally said, “That’s what he seems to have been doing.”
Lady Chakrabarti, the former shadow attorney general, who confronted Keen on the other side of the dispatch box in the House of Lords, said: “All true conservatives will search for their souls today. Governments on both sides have violated national and international laws this century; sometimes catastrophically.
“But never before have they bragged about it beforehand. There are not enough police officers on the planet to achieve the rule of law by force. If there were, who would protect us from them and their payers? This is not conservatism in action, it is something much scarier. It has poked its head in Europe before and it doesn’t end well. “
