Category: Texts and Textual Analyses

The United Kingdom-European Union trade agreement – the early emerging picture

27th December 2020

The draft trade agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom and related documents were published yesterday.

As this blog has previously averred, there is not sufficient time for this agreement and related documents to be properly analysed and scrutinised before the Brexit transition period ends automatically on 31st December 2020.

All one can really do in the time available is read through the documents, spot patterns and complications, and notice the more obvious deficiencies, discrepancies and omissions.

Proper analysis and scrutiny of such a large legal instrument is not and cannot be a linear, read-through exercise.

It is instead complex: comparing provisions within the agreement and related documents, then matching the provisions with external legal instruments, and – most importantly – practically stress-testing the proposed provisions against reality.

As this blog has previously said, legal codes are akin to computer coding – and so quick reviews before deployment will not spot the inevitable bugs.

All that said, there are already some emerging shapes and overall impressions.

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The best starting point is the European Union page, which has links to a number of relevant documents.

You will see there that there is not just one draft agreement, for trade – there are also a security of information agreement and a civil nuclear Agreement.

There is also a 26-page document of ‘declarations’.

Also worth looking at is this 2-page table of consequences of the United Kingdom’s departure and the benefits of the agreement.

The corresponding page of the United Kingdom government has fewer resources but there is this 34-page explainer which summarises at a high-level the ‘core’ provisions of the agreement.

(Though without the contents pages and judicious use of spacing, numbering and tabes, that explainer would have significantly fewer pages.)

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A number of commentators and experts have also shared their early views and impressions.

The excellent team at the Institute of Government have provided initial analyses of the provisions at their site – see the links on the left of that landing page for their looks at individual areas.

Professor Steve Peers – author of various leading texts on European Union law – spent Christmas Day and Boxing Day putting together an explanatory thread on Twitter.

The thread, like the rest of his social media output, is an astonishing work of immediate legal commentary and is a boon for the public understanding of law.

There was other outstanding commentary.

Trade expert Dr Anna Jerzewska: 

Services expert Nicole Sykes:

Former United Kingdom senior trade official David Henig did a post and a thread:

Another trade expert Sam Lowe observed that the trade side of the agreement was thin and – but for politics and choreography – could have been completed more quickly:

John Lichfield provided an informative thread on fisheries:

And extradition lawyer Edward Grange had a similarly informative ‘quick look’:

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In my own area of particular interest – institutions, governance and dispute resolution – my own very preliminary tweet got widely shared:

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1342749971142029312

And it was even picked up by the Daily Express, which – in an extraordinary and unexpected turn of events – described this blog as an ‘influential blog’.

Anton Spisak looked at this far more closely and he compiled this helpful diagram:

This elaborate scheme was correctly described by Professor Phil Syrpis as follows:

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All this is only ‘first glance’ stuff – a Boxing Day walk-through a long and complicated legal text.

But what is already plain is that what the United Kingdom government is boasting and spinning about the agreement may not be accurate.

Remember, however, that the old saying ‘the devil is in the detail’ is often the opposite of the truth.

Devils lurk and thrive in generalities, mismatched expectations, mutual misunderstandings, and grand sweeping statements.

It is these that bedevil us.

Details – that is precise language – flush out these devils.

And as we understand more about what has actually been agreed in this ‘deal’ – and what was not agreed – we will no doubt see many devils flush past.

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Why a two thousand page EU-UK relationship agreement cannot be properly scrutinised between now and 31 December 2020

23rd December 2020

A week tomorrow, on 31st December 2020, the Brexit transition period comes to an end.

This transition period has artificially kept in place most of the substance of membership of the European Union for the United Kingdom (other than representation on various institutions) even though as a matter of law the United Kingdom departed the European Union on 31st January 2020.

There is still no agreement in place for the future relationship.

There is still, it seems, not even an agreed draft text in final form.

And there certainly has not been ratification by the European Parliament.

(In the United Kingdom, parliament does not need to ratify an international agreement though parliament may need to legislate so as to implement what has been agreed.)

According to one well-connected and reliable commentator the current version of the agreement is two thousand pages long.

This is not a surprise, given the scope of what needs to be addressed in the agreement – the new ongoing relationship of the United Kingdom and the European Union on trade and other matters.

There are also news reports that the negotiators have missed the deadline for any agreement to be voted on by the European Parliament before the end of the year.

But even if somehow the European Parliament can reconvene before end of the year, there is not enough time for anyone other than those directly connected with the negotiation (and so will be familiar with the text) to scrutinise the agreement.

Today is a Wednesday – Christmas Eve and Christmas Day block out tomorrow and Friday, and then it’s the the weekend, and then it is the Boxing Day holiday on Monday.

That leaves only three full days to do everything.

The situation is ludicrous.

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A legal instrument is a complex thing.

Legal texts are not linear documents – you do not start reading on page one and go through to the end, and then stop.

A legal text is more akin to a computer program – law codes and computer coding are remarkably similar things.

Each provision – indeed, each word – in a legal instrument has a purpose.

Each provision has to, in turn, cohere with all the other provisions elsewhere in the text – so Article 45, for example, needs to fit with Article 54, and so on.

In an international agreement such as this relationship treaty, each provision also has to cohere with hundreds – perhaps thousands – of other provisions in other legal instruments.

(This is especially true of an agreement entered into by the European Union, which is a creature of law.)

Each provision also has to be capable of working in practice – and so needs to be assessed from a practical as well as a legal(istic) perspective.

And – perhaps most importantly – any significant legal instrument needs to be examined and approved by political representatives.

This last requirement is particularly important when the agreement will have huge consequences for people and for businesses.

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And there is something else.

The United Kingdom government has now twice – in a rush – signed up to something so as to ‘get Brexit done’ and then regretted it.

The first was the ‘joint declaration’ in withdrawal agreement negotiations, and the second was the withdrawal agreement itself – which the United Kingdom government sought to legislate so that it could break the law.

This means that nobody can have any real confidence that government ministers have any proper understanding of what they are signing up to.

If any agreement needs proper scrutiny, this one does.

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Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol makes it so that all three visitations are packed into a single evening.

But not even an imagination as vivid as that of Dickens could make it plausible that a two thousand page agreement of such immense importance could be properly examined as a matter of law and for practicality, and to receive proper political scrutiny, in the few days available before the end of the year.

Brace, brace.

*****

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How a government capable of ‘cancelling Christmas’ did not extend the Brexit transition period – or why populism keeps prevailing over prudence

Winter Solstice, 2020

How did it come to pass that a government capable of ‘cancelling Christmas’ did not extend the Brexit transition period,?

Why is the United Kingdom having to deal simultaneously with the effects of both a pandemic and the departure from the European Union?

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The Brexit withdrawal agreement provided for a transition period, where the United Kingdom remained part of the European Union in substance if not in legal from (though not part of the law and policy making institutions).

Article 126 of that exit agreement provided that this extension period would end on 31 December 2020.

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The exit agreement also provided that the transition period could be extended – either by one or even two years.

This was a prudent provision –  just in case something happened which meant the brisk ‘let’s get Brexit done’ timetable was not possible because of some significant development – well, like a worldwide pandemic.

Yet 1st July 2020 came and went with no extension to the transition period.

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1278101059119075332

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This deadline for putting in place an extension was not a mere omission – the sort of thing a busy government may not have noticed in the rush of events.

The  failure to put in place the extension was a deliberate decision of the United Kingdom.

On 12 June 2020, the cabinet minister responsible for negotiations with the European Union announced proudly:

‘We have informed the EU today that we will not extend the Transition Period. The moment for extension has now passed.’

Had he perhaps not realised there was a pandemic on at the time?

Remarkably, the following sentence of the minister’s statement expressly stated that the decision not to extend was in view of the pandemic:

‘At the end of this year we will control our own laws and borders which is why we are able to take the sovereign decision to introduce arrangements in a way that gives businesses impacted by coronavirus time to adjust.’

The United Kingdom government promoted the decision not to extend as a news story.

The deadline was even the topic of direct discussion between the prime minister and the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission on 15 June 2020:

‘The Parties noted the UK’s decision not to request any extension to the transition period. The transition period will therefore end on 31 December 2020, in line with the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement.’

The United Kingdom government knew the extension deadline was about to pass, and the government decided deliberately to not have an extension with full awareness (and explicit mention) of the ongoing pandemic.

‘Getting Brexit done’ was more important.

Populism prevailed over prudence.

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This option to extend the transition period was the only way to do so that was written into the exit agreement.

This means that, on the face of it, there is no way there can be an agreement now to extend the transition period.

The opportunity to extend the agreement would appear to have come and gone.

That said, there may be other ways of an extension – as set out by Georgina Wright and others in this report by the estimable Institute for Government.

And few legal feats are beyond the wits of clever European Union and United Kingdom government lawyers in a crisis.

But such an alternative approach to extension would not be easy nor  can it be instant – it would be an elaborate patch and workaround.

For such an extension to put in place now – ten days before the end of the transition period, with the Christmas holidays and a weekend in the middle – would require extraordinary political goodwill and legal ingenuity.

And all to have the same effect as the opportunity squandered by the government in June 2020.

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The decision to ‘cancel Christmas’ was, as this blog set out yesterday, not one any government would have wanted to make.

The fundamental mistake of this government was not to prepare people for the possibility – indeed probability – of this decision.

Days before the decision was made, the prime minister was loudly deriding the leader of the opposition on this very point.

Just click  below and watch and listen.

(Alongside this banality, the Secretary  of State for Education was also threatening a London council with a high court mandatory injunction so as to keep schools open.)

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Had the prime minister and others been acting responsibly, and in the public interest, and given it appears that the government had known about the new coronavirus variant for some time, there should not have been derision of the opposition for the possibility of ‘cancelling Christmas’.

A prime minister and government acting responsibly, and in the public interest, would have been explaining that the public and businesses had to brace themselves for the possibility – indeed probability – of such restrictions and to prepare accordingly.

But the prime minister went for easy claps and cheers instead.

Again, populism prevailed over prudence.

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Yesterday, this story was published by the government-supporting media.

The ugly truth, however, is that every single significant error in Brexit and with coronavirus has been because of the UK government ‘playing to its domestic audience’.

Every single one.

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This law and policy blog provides a daily post commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters – each post is published at about 9.30am UK time.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

If you value the free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary both at this blog and at my Twitter account please do support through the Paypal box above.

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The shoddy legal direction of Gavin Williamson to Greenwich Council

15th December 2020

Amidst the flurry of government regulations closing down various things during the current pandemic comes this very different legal instrument from Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education.

Instead of ordering a thing to close, the Secretary of State is ordering things to stay open.

It is an extraordinary letter, and it is worth examining carefully.

(As a preliminary point, however, please note I am not an education law specialist and so there may be sector-specific legal aspects of this of which I am unaware – the examination in this post is on general legal principles and based on my experience as a former government lawyer and as a public lawyer generally.)

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First, let us look at the power on which the Secretary of State relies upon.

It would seem there is no general legal power for the Secretary of State to order that any school remain open (or close), and so the letter relies on a specific provision in the Coronavirus Act 2020.

(If there were such a general legal power to issue such a direction, then presumably the Secretary of State would rely upon that power instead of the Coronavirus Act 2020.)

The relevant section of the Act is section 38.

The relevant part of that section is section 38(1)(a) which provides for a power to enable the Secretary of State to give directions requiring the ‘provision, or continuing provision, of education, training and childcare’.

That provision in turn refers to a paragraph in a schedule to the Act.

(This is not a ‘paragraph’ as such – it is a wordy provision which goes on for three pages, like something from a W. G. Sebald book.)

The paragraph sets out in detail the requirements for a ‘temporary continuity direction’ under section 38 – like a checklist.

For example, the Secretary of State must have regard to medical advice (paragraph 1(3)(a) and the direction must be necessary and proportionate (paragraph 1(3)(b).

The direction can require the recipient to take ‘reasonable steps in general terms’ (paragraph 1(4)(a)) and require a relevant institution to stay open or to re-open (paragraph 1(4)(b).

There is also a catch-all power that the Secretary of State may make any other connected provisions which he or she ‘considers appropriate’ (paragraph 1(4)(i)).

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What is the duty of the recipient of such a direction?

The Act provides that it is ‘the duty of a responsible body or relevant institution to which a temporary continuity direction…to comply with the direction’.

How is this duty to be enforced?

If the recipient does not comply with a direction, the government can make an application to the courts for an injunction.

(Both the above are in paragraph 1(6) of the schedule.)

This would, of course, be an unusual injunction – most injunctions prohibit a person from doing a thing, while this will be a rarer ‘mandatory’ injunction requiring a person to do a thing.

A failure to comply with an injunction is, at law, a serious matter and can be a contempt of court, with (presumably) sanctions such as imprisonment and unlimited fines.

A breach of a mandatory injunction may also result in a court directing that the required act be completed by another person at the expense of the disobedient party (CPR 70.2A).

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This looks like a wide and arbitrary power for the Secretary of State to give directions, with serious sanctions for a breach of a direction.

But if you look carefully there are explicit statutory requirements for the Secretary of State to be reasonable and to use this power only where necessary and proportionate.

These requirements are also imposed by the general law.

These will be quite high hurdles for the Secretary of State to jump.

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Going back to the letter, you will see that in paragraph 2 of the letter the Secretary of State asserts that he ‘considers [the direction] to be reasonable’ – but there is almost no reasoning other than a general reference to a general interest (‘of securing that schools…allow pupils to attend school full time’ ) and a general reference to the Secretary of State’s guidance (but with no specific guidance quoted).

There is also no local data.

Any court would expect to see far more reasoning than this before enforcing such a direction with a mandatory order.

For example, can the education of the pupils not be done remotely?

Has proper regard been made to local conditions?

Is it proportionate and necessary to mandate a school to remain open with only days left in the school term?

Is it fair and equitable (a test of most injunctions) to insist a state school remain open when many private schools remain closed?

These are not ‘gotcha’ questions, but points which one knows a court will ask before granting an injunction – and so should be anticipated and covered in a letter threatening an injunction.

But there is nothing in this letter to meet these obvious and foreseeable questions that would need to be answered in court.

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This direction then, even if it is the right thing for the Secretary of State to order, is not a well-drafted piece of legal work.

If i were still a government lawyer I would have been embarrassed to have prepared this for a minister.

It is not enough to assert that a thing is reasonable, necessary or proportionate – these statutory requirements for a direction also need to be shown.

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The recipient of this letter – Greenwich Council – has already published an initial response.

Their initial response is as detailed as the Secretary of State’s letter is not.

“Yesterday we asked all schools in the Royal Borough of Greenwich to move to online learning for most pupils, but keep premises open for the children of key workers, vulnerable children and those with special educational needs. 

‘Other boroughs have asked schools to take similar measures, and the Mayor of London has also called for all secondary schools to close, with an extra week off in January to enable testing.  

‘Our request was based on information from Public Health England and supported by the Council’s Public Health team. In the Royal Borough of Greenwich, we currently have the highest rates of COVID-19 since March, with numbers doubling every four days. Our seven-day infection rate for the borough is now 59% higher than at the same point last week. 

‘Infection rates are particularly high amongst young people, with 817 children of school age testing positive for COVID-19. 4,262 children and 362 staff are self-isolating – that’s an increase of 640 people since Friday. In many cases, other members of the child’s household have also tested positive, impacting entire families. 

‘Schools across the borough have now organised online learning from tomorrow, whilst others are opening their premises to all pupils. This evening we received a legal direction from the Government to withdraw our request to schools. We are in the process of seeking legal advice and will respond to the Government in the morning.  

‘We have alerted schools, and will speak to them tomorrow. But given we received this notification just before 5pm, it was impossible to ask schools to change any of the arrangements they have in place for Tuesday.’

The person(s) who drafted that response have done a good job: they are showing how the closure is reasonable, necessary and proportionate.

The response is based on local data and shows that reasonable alternative arrangements have been made.

The response also shows the council is in a better position to asses the situation than the Secretary of State.

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On the basis of information in the Greenwich Council response, the government would be hard-pressed to obtain an injunction in support of their direction.

None of the above is to say that the government’s ultimate position is weak – a better prepared direction, based on local data, and with proper and detailed reasoning, may have been – or still be – possible.

But such a direction letter was not sent, and this shoddy one was sent instead.

The Secretary of State may issue a better direction – or government lawyers may turn up to court with a better application for an injunction.

The government is even threatening to go to court ‘without notice’ so that the council may be subjected to an injunction without any say in court, which would be inappropriate given the council have set out already that it believes it is acting reasonably.

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Ministerial directions are powerful legal instruments, but they should always be used with care.

When I was young I often had reports sent from school averring that I could do better.

But here we have what purports to be a formal government direction sent to keep schools open where one could say of the Secretary of State that they could do better.

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POSTSCRIPT

Sadly – at least for the legal commentary (at least) the council has decided not to contest the direction in court.

The council, of course, is entitled to take such a decision.

But its decision to comply with the direction does not take away anything from the critique above.

*****

This law and policy blog provides a daily post commenting on and contextualising a topical law and policy matter – each post is published at about 9.30am UK time.

Each post takes time, effort, and opportunity cost.

If you value the free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary both at this blog and at my Twitter account please do support through the Paypal box above.

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Sovereignty and ‘Sovereignty!’

11th December 2020

One feature of contemporary politics in both the United Kingdom and United States is the way descriptive words and phrases have become slogans with a very different meaning.

This blog has already described the unhappy juxtaposition between ‘Law and Order!’ and law and order – and we now have a populist president in the United States using his power to pardon so as to place people above and beyond the law, while the populist government of the United Kingdom sought recently to expressly legislate that it could break the law.

And a similar distinction can be made about sovereignty and ‘Sovereignty!’.

In the United Kingdom it would seem that one explanation of the ongoing failure for a trade agreement to be finalised with the European Union is because of this ‘s’ word.

Here, as examples, are some recent tweets from the United Kingdom’s head negotiator.

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So what does this ‘s’ word mean?

From a legal perspective, sovereignty is really about two things.

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First, sovereignty is about the ultimate source of political power in any given polity.

In the United Kingdom, as its name suggests, the ultimate source of political power is the crown.

Some would say is not correct to even speak of the ‘sovereignty of parliament’ – the power of parliament to make or unmake any law always depends on a bill receiving royal assent.

Only with the crown’s approval does a law then have super-duper magical power.

Resolutions and motions of either or both houses of parliament may bind parliament but they do not have the same effect outside as legislation.

That is why I and others tend to write of ‘supremacy’ of parliament, not sovereignty.

The crown also is the source of political power elsewhere in the United Kingdom constitution.

It is the source of power – somewhat obviously – in respect of the so-called ‘royal prerogative’ – where the executive gets to do things which have legal effect without any legislative basis.

It is the source of power with ‘royal charters’, instruments which can have legal effects similar to legislation.

And the crown is the ultimate source of power for the judiciary, at least for the high court of England and Wales.

(This means that in constitutional terms, the two Miller cases on prime ministerial power can be characterised as being about the crown in the courts adjudicating on the powers of the crown as exercised by ministers so as to circumvent the crown in parliament.)

This form of sovereignty is quite unaffected by anything Boris Johnson and David Frost may or may not agree to with the European Union.

Just as parliament was always able to repeal the European Communities Act 1972, parliament will be able to make or unmake any law which flows from the post-Brexit relationship agreement, and that will be respected by the courts.

So this cannot be the meaning of sovereignty that Johnson and Frost have in mind.

Nothing in any post-Brexit trade agreement is relevant to this meaning of sovereignty at all.

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The second legal meaning of sovereignty is not so much about the source of power but about legal capacity.

A sovereign thing can do and not do as it wishes.

And one thing a sovereign thing can do is to enter agreements with other sovereign things.

This is where Johnson and Frost appear to misunderstand the ‘s’ word.

For them, ‘Sovereignty!’ means that the United Kingdom cannot and should not enter into and be bound by any international agreements.

But one test of sovereignty is that a thing is capable of entering into international agreements – the cart is not before the horse.

In general terms, being able to accept obligations is the very point of sovereignty: that a nation state can enter into a treaty means that it is a sovereign state.

(For more on the fascinating history of sovereignty and treaties, see here.)

This is why, for example, Canada, Australia and New Zealand insisted on being separate signatories to the surrender instrument of Japan, and to not allow the United Kingdom to sign on behalf of the then empire.

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Sovereignty thereby does not mean that the United Kingdom cannot and should not enter into international agreements.

Sovereignty means that the United Kingdom can do so.

And any international agreement means accepting obligations that restrict autonomy, for that is the nature of an obligation.

Under the North Atlantic treaty, for example, the United Kingdom has an obligation to go to war even if it not attacked itself. 

Article 5 of that treaty provides:

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

Some would say that Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty is a greater interference with the ‘s’ word of the United Kingdom than anything which has come from the European Union.

And it is difficult to reconcile many statements of government-supporting politicians on sovereignty in respect of the European Union with their continued support for the United Kingdom being part of NATO.

Similar points can also be made for the United Kingdom’s obligations under the United Nations charter and indeed under any other international treaties.

Trade-offs on autonomy are a feature and not a bug of being a sovereign state.

An analogy is with being able to marry: when a person reaches their majority they can enter into a marriage contract should they so wish, but being in their majority does not compel them to either marry or not marry, and if they marry they can always divorce.

The Johnson-Frost approach to the ‘s’ word is confused.

They seem to think sovereignty means that the United Kingdom cannot and should not enter into international agreements, whereas sovereignty actually means that the United Kingdom can do so should it want to do so.

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An indication of the United Kingdom government’s incorrect understanding of sovereignty was set out in a white paper earlier in the Brexit process:

“The sovereignty of Parliament is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution. Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.”

This is about “feelings” – not law or policy.

Brexit as therapy – so as to make the United Kingdom “feel” it is a sovereign state.

And this is the fundamental misconception of those who assert ‘Sovereignty!’ just to make themselves feel better.

Sovereignty exists anyway.

Sovereignty does not care about your feelings.

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This law and policy blog provides a daily post commenting on and contextualising a topical law and policy matter – each post is published at about 9.30am UK time.

***

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The extraordinary Sir Simon McDonald “clarification” – a guided tour

22nd April 2020

Yesterday a senior civil servant gave evidence to a select committee.

In that evidence was a fascinating exchange, and it is worth watching carefully.

Later that day, the civil servant sent an extraordinary “clarification”.

https://twitter.com/TomTugendhat/status/1252679936768344070

This is a guided tour of that supposed clarification letter.

One theme of this tour is that the letter is not one would expect from a senior civil servant seeking to clarify something otherwise unclear, and that the letter instead makes the situation far less clear.

The letter also appears to have had more than one author, and it appears that it is a document negotiated between the civil servant and others.

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“EU VENTILATOR PROCUREMENT SCHEME”

The letter has a title, and it is worth noting for what follows that it is about the ventilator scheme. 

“I wanted to clarify a point…”

You may think that the point that was made to the committee was clear, and that its clarity is what caused the political fuss.

(Here it is also worth considering whether the letter was entirely voluntary, or whether the civil servant had insisted on a ministerial direction to write the letter.)

“…the EU’s Ventilator procurement scheme – the Joint Procurement Agreement”

This is where the letter starts becoming (ahem) unclear.

From the title it would seem we are looking at just one of the recent procurement rounds under the joint procurement agreement.

But the addition of the text after the hyphen makes it less clear what is about to be denied in the next paragraph.

“Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding, I inadvertently and wrongly…”

Anyone who knows about how careful senior civil servants are in drafting formal documents would at this stage affect an Alan Hansen-like face discussing some footballing defensive disaster.

Some would even say that the “due to” is a tell that someone other than the civil servant was involved in drafting this letter (more on this later).

The “misunderstanding” is not stated.

The word “inadvertently” adds nothing to the “misunderstanding” and is surplus.

The word “wrongly” is vague, because it is not clear which of the following propositions is wrong.

And we are not even half way through this sentence.

“…that Ministers were briefed by UKMIS on the EU’s Joint Procurement Agreement scheme and took a political decision not to participate in it”

Something inside this text is “wrong” but it is not clear whether it wrong in part or in full.

The insertion of “by UKMIS” is eye-catching, as it means ministers could have been briefed by others.

And the text does not say Ministers were not aware – and that would have been easier to write.

The reference to “the EU’s Joint Procurement Agreement scheme” is also not clear – the United Kingdom has been a signatory to the agreement since 2014 and is still a signatory following Brexit (now along with fellow non-members Iceland, Norway and Bosnia-Herzegovina) and so the United Kingdom was (and is) already participating in it.

And what does “political decision” mean?

Why not just “decision”?

The longer this letter goes on, the less clear it becomes.

And then the next two sentences are a cracker.

“This is incorrect.”

What is incorrect?

He has already stated something is “wrong” – but surely this is not some sly double-negative?

The preceding sentence is so jumbled and tortured it is not clear what is being negated by “This is incorrect”.

“Ministers were not briefed by our mission in Brussels…”

But could have been briefed by others.

“…about the scheme…”

Which scheme?

The ventilator procurement scheme by itself, or the joint procurement agreement scheme more generally?

“…and a political decision…”

As opposed to another sort of decision?

“…was not taken on whether or not to participate”

Why is this so specific?

Was some other decision taken?

And now we come to the third paragraph of the “clarification”, where things get even more unclear.

“The facts of the situation are as previously set out.”

Where and by whom?

“Owing to…”

So the supposed author does know better than to use “due to” earlier in the letter – hmmmmm.

“…an initial communications problem…”

This is vague in two ways – why “initial” and why no express mention of the supposed email?

A communication between whom?

Between the European Union and the United Kingdom?

Or within the United Kingdom?

“…the United Kingdom did not receive an invitation in time…”

But as part of the decision-making meetings before the procurement, the United Kingdom would have been aware of the procurements.

It would not have had to have waited until the invitation to know about them.

This would be like Mr Bean being surprised when sending himself a Christmas card.

“…to join in four joint COVID EU procurement schemes.”

Notice the subtle switch to the plural – “schemes”.

This letter starts off about the ventilator scheme, then it calls the joint procurement agreement a scheme, and now it is talking about four schemes.

Which scheme does the “political decision” in the proceeding paragraph now refer to?

“As those four initial schemes had already gone out to tender we were unable to take part.”

What does “we were unable to take part” mean here?

Is it limited to the past tense?

Can we take part now?

And how does this accord with other statements about the United Kingdom now taking part?

“The Health Secretary has set out the Government’s position on this going forward.”

The ugly “going forward” indicates that someone else was involved in the drafting of this statement – no senior civil servant would happily use such a phrase in formal correspondence.

But more generally, what does this statement mean – what is the “this” in that sentence?

“…this clarification…”

This letter is the opposite of a clarification.

*

Senior civil servants are, like lawyers, wordsmiths.

A formal document, such as a letter to a select committee, should be a considered, structured and coherent composition.

But this letter is all over the place (Alan Hansen wince).

The letter is tortured and awkward, and this indicates that the letter was a negotiated document – and negotiated to the point of strangulation.

The particular sentences may be all correct, but there seems to be gaps between sentences, and other things seem cloaked (especially “scheme”/”schemes”).

The overall letter smacks of evasion and misdirection.

The civil servant’s statement was clear, and this clarification is not.

Something is up here.

**

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The moral hazard of the United Kingdom casually breaching the Political Declaration

27th February 2020

The Political Declaration is a formal, negotiated document agreed between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

You can see the document here, hosted on the United Kingdom’s own website – all 31 pages of detailed prose, over 141 numbered paragraphs.

It is a serious document, to be taken seriously.

The United Kingdom government says itself on its website:

“The new Political Declaration sets out the framework for the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom and reflects the Government’s ambition to conclude an ambitious, broad, deep and flexible partnership across trade and economic cooperation with the EU, with a free trade agreement with the EU at its core, alongside agreements on security and other areas of cooperation.”

The Political Declaration, however, is not legally binding.

And there is now a suggestion that the United Kingdom government can and should disregard the commitments set out in the Political Declaration.

*

There have been, broadly, two responses to the United Kingdom government apparent desire to breach the terms of the Political Declaration.

The first is first is to say that as the Political Declaration is not binding then it does not matter if it is breached, casually or otherwise.

The second is to say that the Political Declaration is a formal and negotiated document, and that it does matter if it is breached.

These two views appear to be be in conflict to the point of contradiction.  

And if they are in conflict then the question becomes which is the better view.

The two responses are not actually in conflict as they are dealing with different things: there is therefore no hard contradiction.

But the better view is that the Political Declaration should be taken seriously – even if it is not binding.

Indeed, that the Political Declaration is not binding makes it more important that the government takes it seriously.

*

What does it mean for a formal commitment to be “binding”?

Not all formally negotiated documents are (legally) “binding” – so what is it which gives them this quality.

In general terms “binding” means that there are formal sanctions available in the event of the breach.

These sanctions may not necessarily require the party in breach to specifically perform the commitment.

The sanction may be that the other party can terminate the agreement, or that there is some remedy or benefit for the other party.

But whatever the sanction, the notion is that the agreed commitment can be enforced against the party in breach so that the other party does not suffer the disadvantage of the breach.

Making a commitment (legally) binding is one way of showing that the party undertaking the commitment is being serious.

*

In foreign affairs and international politics, however, a preoccupation with whether a formal serious commitment is “binding” or not is in good part a legalistic red herring.

A serious formal commitment is intended to be taken seriously and formally: that is its very point.

And this is regardless of whether it is technically “binding”.

Resiling from an obligation on the technicality that it is not legally binding is not to take such a commitment seriously.

(A useful comparator are the United Kingdom’s pre-Brexit financial commitments to the European Union – there were question marks over whether they were legally binding – how could they be litigated? which court? – but this was not the point: the United Kingdom had made a commitment and was expected to stick to it.)

*

All this said, there may be a good reason for a country to depart from a formal serious undertaking.

And both the United Kingdom and the European Union knew that the Political Declaration was not (legally) enforceable.

Both sides accepted it could and would be departed from, in certain circumstances.

The crucial question would be: how and on what basis?

And in this way, the Political Declaration is, in effect, a test for a post-Brexit United Kingdom.

How seriously does the United Kingdom take non-binding commitments and assurances?

Do the words matter?

The less seriously the United Kingdom takes non-binding commitments, the stronger the signal to the European Union that anything important needs to be tied down in strict legal provisions.

This is why the daft posturing of the United Kingdom about casually breaking the the Political Declaration matters.

It matters as much, if not more, than if the Political Declaration was “binding”.

In effect: the Unite Kingdom is sending a signal of “don’t trust us, insist on strict legal obligations”.

And this signal is not just being sent to European Union – the signal is now being broadcast to every nation in world, to all the countries where, post-Brexit, United Kingdom may want to have “trade agreements”.

The United Kingdom may think it is saying to EU “screw you” but in fact it is telling the world “screw us”.

*

Brexit was an opportunity for the United Kingdom to show the world how serious it was about having an independent trade policy.

Instead, the United Kingdom keeps showing the world how lacking in seriousness it is in entering international commitments

One day this lesson of moral hazard will be learned – if not by current ministers then it will be understood by future ones.

But that may be too late, as something important will already have been lost, and it will be hard to regain.

The United Kingdom government is still not taking Brexit seriously.

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