Britain\u2019s main opposition Labour Party said on Sunday it would press for contempt proceedings against the government if Prime Minister Theresa May fails to produce the full legal advice she has received on her Brexit deal.<\/p>\n
The threat is yet another hurdle for May to clear before parliament votes on Dec. 11 on her deal for Britain\u2019s exit from the European Union, its biggest shift in foreign and trade policy for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n
With the odds looking stacked against her, May is touring the country and media studios to try to win over critics including both eurosceptics and europhiles who say the deal will leave Britain a diminished state, still linked economically to the EU but no longer having any say over the rules.<\/p>\n
May often says her deal will protect jobs and end free movement. She hopes her argument that it is the only feasible deal with the EU and that voting it down will raise the risks of a \u201cno-deal\u201d Brexit or no Brexit at all will concentrate minds.<\/p>\n
Labour has said it will vote against the deal. On Sunday its Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, increased the pressure on May by saying Labour would start contempt proceedings against the government if it did not publish its legal advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn nine days\u2019 time, parliament has got to take probably the most important decision it has taken for a generation and it\u2019s obviously important that we know the full legal implications of what the prime minister wants us to sign up to,\u201d Starmer said.<\/p>\n
British media said the contempt move was also supported by the small Northern Irish party which props up May\u2019s minority government, underlining her precarious position in parliament.<\/p>\n
May\u2019s former foreign minister, Boris Johnson, a prominent opponent of May\u2019s deal and advocate of a much sharper break with the EU, also weighed in.<\/p>\n
In his weekly column in the Telegraph newspaper, he said he backed the calls for the government to publish the advice, adding that it showed what some feared – a so-called backstop arrangement for Northern Ireland was \u201ca great steel trap that is about to clamp its jaws around our hind limbs and prevent our escape\u201d.<\/p>\n
The government has promised to give lawmakers access to the legal analysis of the Brexit deal and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will make a statement to parliament on Monday. Opposition parties suspect it will only offer a summary of that advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an unprecedented situation and that\u2019s why we\u2019ve got an unprecedented situation just tomorrow when the attorney general will be making a statement to parliament,\u201d Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis told Sky News.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I would hope again that when colleagues hear what the attorney general has to say, they will be satisfied that the government has delivered on what it said it would do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under parliamentary rules, it is up to the speaker to decide whether to allow a contempt motion to be voted upon. If it passes, it would then be referred to a committee which would rule on whether contempt had taken place. If so, it would then recommend a punishment, which lawmakers must agree.<\/p>\n
Critics of May say the advice could contain warnings about certain parts of her withdrawal deal with Brussels, especially over the status of Northern Ireland and, if published, might stiffen opposition to the accord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Britain\u2019s main opposition Labour Party said on Sunday it would press for contempt proceedings against the government if Prime Minister Theresa May fails to produce the full legal advice she has received on her Brexit deal. The threat is yet another hurdle for May to clear before parliament votes on Dec. 11 on her deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49032,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49030\/revisions\/49032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}