Campaigners have launched a legal challenge against Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, arguing it is unlawful and attempting to prevent it from being voted on by MPs on Saturday.
Campaigner Jolyon Maugham QC is behind the legal bid which will be heard at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Scotland’s highest civil court.
He argues the new deal contravenes a current law which says it is “unlawful for Her Majesty’s government to enter into arrangements under which Northern Ireland forms part of a separate customs territory to Great Britain”.
This part of the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018, Section 55, was put forward by the Conservatives’ right-wing group of MPs known as the European Research Group (ERG).
Changes around what would happen in Northern Ireland have formed an integral role in the new Brexit deal, agreed between the UK government and the EU on Thursday.
The prime minister tweeted it removes the “anti-democratic” Irish backstop.
The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said under the new agreement Northern Ireland would be part of the UK’s customs territory, not the EU’s, but would “remain an entry point” into the EU single market and aligned to some EU rules on goods.
This means they must be checked on entry to the island of Ireland, rather than border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Maugham, whose legal team had previously taken action in order to try to prevent a no-deal Brexit by ensuring the Johnson obeys by the Benn Act, is seeking a court order, or interdict, banning the government from putting the new deal before parliament for a vote on Saturday.
He tweeted: “We do not understand how the Government might have come to negotiate a Withdrawal Agreement in terms that breach amendments tabled by its own European Research Group.
“Unless and until Section 55 is repealed by the UK Parliament, it is simply not open, as a matter of law, for the United Kingdom to enter into such an agreement.”
He said if the court rules the new deal is “unlawful”, the government will have to request a Brexit extension.
Maugham added: “If the government wants to seek parliament’s consent to repeal section 55, it can and should seek that consent.
“But it must not negotiate unlawful trade deals and then present them to Parliament as a fait accompli.”
Announcing the new deal on Thursday, Johnson tweeted: “We will leave the EU’s Customs Union as one United Kingdom and be able to strike trade deals all around the world.”