Professor Guglielmo Verdirame
Professor of International Law at King’s College London in the Department of War Studies and the School of Law; barrister at 20 Essex Street Chambers
The UK’s legal position in relation to the backstop.
“The UK continues to be too timid” in its negotiations with the EU over the Backstop and its relationship to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement
This paper explains how Parliament and Government jointly could mitigate the risk that the backstop becomes a permanent feature of the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
The Labour Party manifesto, published last week, promises that the first year of a Labour government would see the introduction of “a War Powers Act to ensure that no prime minister can bypass Parliament to commit to conventional military action”. Enacting legislation of this kind would be a major change in our constitutional arrangements. The risk is that it would distort decision-making about the use of force and would undermine political responsibility for its use.
