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Courtesy of the Telegraph - Tory civil war on the cards.
Theresa May is heading towards a version of Brexit that effectively fails to withdraw Britain from the European Union, a former senior judge and an ex-leader of the Tories have warned Sir Richard Aikens, a Court of Appeal judge until 2015, told the Prime Minister that a proposed “compromise” on oversight by the European Court of Justice was “dangerous” and would be “tantamount to reversing the result of the 2016 referendum”. His warning comes amid a growing Cabinet row over the plans.
In an article for the Telegraph, Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader and one of the party’s most influential Eurosceptics, agrees with Sir Richard and warns that the move could lead to European judges overseeing trade disputes. Mrs May is facing mounting protests over the plans from within her Government, with Michael Gove and Boris Johnson understood to be among at least four senior ministers opposing the proposed offer to Brussels. Damian Green, her embattled First Secretary, is said to be pushing for the move, which senior Tories fear could be offered to the EU as soon as Monday, when the Prime Minister meets Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, ahead of a crunch Dec 14 summit of EU leaders.
The row, which threatens to explode into a backbench revolt, comes amid a war of words over potential concessions for Dublin ahead of a ruling at the summit about whether “sufficient progress” has been made in Brexit negotiations on three areas: the rights of EU citizens, a divorce bill, and Ireland. Under the plans for a “compromise” on citizens’ rights, the UK would offer Brussels an arrangement in which British judges are able to refer specific cases relating to EU citizens to the ECJ for a “binding interpretation”. Such cases would centre on points of law on which there had not already been clear rulings from the court. But on Saturday multiple government figures, together with Mr Duncan Smith, warned that the move could represent the “thin end of the wedge” and lead to ECJ rulings on other issues, including trade.
A Cabinet source said: “There is a massive question of where this would end.” Sir Richard, the president of Lawyers for Britain, which campaigned for a Leave vote in the referendum, raised similar concerns in a letter to Mrs May last week, a copy of which has been seen by this newspaper. “After the UK leaves the European Union, the rights of EU citizens in the UK … will be governed by a bilateral treaty between the UK and the EU,” he said. “I know of no instance in current international relations where a sovereign state that has entered into a treaty with another sovereign entity (such as the EU) has accepted as binding the rulings of the court .