It's not often we are privy to a professional man trashing his own career in public so we should spare a thought today for poor old Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General. Last October he gave what was called at the time 'a barnstorming' speech to the Conservative party conference (HERE) even fitting in a bit of Milton's Aeropagitica - “Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks,” he roared. “Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.”
This was England he was alluding to - a strong man roused after sleep and by Brexit no less. His peroration sent the party faithful into raptures and his star was born. However, what Brexit gives it can also take away. Cox's legal career may never recover from the last three months or so.
Charged by the PM with getting serious changes from Brussels in the WA and the Irish backstop, the one that she herself negotiated, and doing it by 5 pm Brussels time today, it seems he is destined to fail spectacularly (HERE) with Reuters quoting a UK government source that nothing is likely to change. The AG is being set up as the fall guy for failing to put right May's own massive error in misreading parliament and the EU.
Last year Cox had to give secret legal advice on the WA before it was published, something he did on 13th November (HERE). He carefully explained the Irish backstop would endure indefinitely 'unless and until' an alternative system was agreed and came into operation. He didn't expect his advice to become public but in December the government was forced to produce it under a FOI request and so Cox stepped into the limelight - not to say the mire.
Before the first meaningful vote on January 15th, presumably on the strength of his conference speech in October, he was given the task of trying to persuade MPs in the House that although the backstop was in fact permanent it was really only temporary and that the EU didn't want it to come into force just as much as the UK (HERE):
"..the EU will have to set up entirely different legal and administrative systems in order to set up the customs union that is enshrined within the backstop, yet Britain will pay not one penny of contribution to those complex administrative and technical systems which the EU will, on their side alone, have to finance. How long does the House really think that the EU would wish to go on paying for a bespoke arrangement in which they are paying tens of millions of euros to sustain a customs union that is simply on their own admission a temporary arrangement?"
And
"I have reached the conclusion that it is a risk that it is acceptable to take, even having regard to the perils that it involves if it were to become permanent and the questions that it unquestionably raises in connection with the Union with Northern Ireland".
Well, we know how well that went with the government going down to the biggest defeat in our entire parliamentary history. Not so much an eagle mewing her mighty youth and more of a headless chicken.
And now, after all of Cox's strenuous efforts this week, we heard the EU deliver an ultimatum (HERE). They told the UK government on Wednesday we had 48 hours to provide 'acceptable proposals' if negotiators were to work through the weekend to try and reach an agreement in time for the second meaningful vote. The inference being that the EU thought his ideas unacceptable.
Yesterday Cox was back in the House answering questions and in reply to one from Hilary Benn it appears that he is pursuing a different sort of arbitration mechanism to the one that was already enshrined in the Withdrawal Agreement (para 175). He gave the House an intriguing answer:
"The problem is that although the [existing] arbitration system applies to the protocol, the question that one asks the arbitrator is at the heart of the effectiveness of any arbitration. Although I am not at this stage able to disclose to the right hon. Gentleman the question that has been proposed by the United Kingdom to the Commission, the question is everything. He may very well need to take that into account, because the question about when the protocol would end is likely to be determinative of whether the mechanism is effective".
What does this mean? I really don't know. But in a sure sign the AG's career is arcing groundward and trailing smoke the prime minister seems to have given up on him
Today she is visiting Grimsby (HERE). Yep, you heard it right, Grimsby. I've got nothing against Grimsby but all I can say is, in the middle of what looks increasingly like a crisis - why Grimsby? She will apparently speak to 'workers' there with just 21 days to go to and tell them the EU must compromise - something I'm sure they will be riveted if a little baffled to hear. What the EU will make of it as they wait for 'acceptable proposals' and watch the clock tick down we can only imagine (clue: not a lot).
Little Miss Stubborn has met her match in the EU. She will apparently say the EU have to 'make a choice' in the next few days (HERE) apparently forgetting it was the British people who made the choice in June 2016. I think the reaction in Brussels will probably be slack jawed bemusement at it all.
Robert Peston struggles to understand what Geoffrey Cox was even attempting to do (HERE) since he doesn't believe it would be remotely acceptable to the ERG or the EU and says he seems to have "taken a leaf out of the Theresa May political playbook by equating compromise with a plan that simultaneously alienates more-or-less everyone".
Peston thinks the second meaningful vote (MV2) will be lost and turns his thoughts to how Theresa May will vote on the 13th March when parliament will be asked to rule out a no deal Brexit:
".... EU leaders are agog about whether the PM will vote for or against a March 29 no-deal Brexit. Logically she should vote to retain the option of no-deal, if she wishes to be true to almost three years of her rhetoric.
"But were she to do that, it is not clear how she could credibly and consistently represent MPs and the UK if the vote goes as expected, and MPs order her to sue the EU for a delay to Brexit".
As I think I might have said before - What a mess!
Peston thinks the second meaningful vote (MV2) will be lost and turns his thoughts to how Theresa May will vote on the 13th March when parliament will be asked to rule out a no deal Brexit:
".... EU leaders are agog about whether the PM will vote for or against a March 29 no-deal Brexit. Logically she should vote to retain the option of no-deal, if she wishes to be true to almost three years of her rhetoric.
"But were she to do that, it is not clear how she could credibly and consistently represent MPs and the UK if the vote goes as expected, and MPs order her to sue the EU for a delay to Brexit".
As I think I might have said before - What a mess!
