EU Backstop Assurances Have No Legal Weight, Unless Part Of Brexit Deal - UK Lobby Chair

EU reassurances on Irish border backstop have no "legal weight" if they are not part of the actual withdrawal agreement, Gisela Stuart, the chair of the Change Britain campaign, told Sputnik

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2019) EU reassurances on Irish border backstop have no "legal weight" if they are not part of the actual withdrawal agreement, Gisela Stuart, the chair of the Change Britain campaign, told Sputnik.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May said in a Brexit statement on Monday that the EU letter of reassurances on Brexit issued earlier in the day would have legal force and could be used for arbitration in the future. President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker and President of the European Council Donald Tusk pledged to speed up the talks on alternative solutions for backstop and promised that the current provision would not affect Good Friday agreement.

"We know if it's not part of the [withdrawal] treaty then it doesn't have legal weight," Stuart, a former Labour member of the UK parliament, said.

Stuart argued that a future commission may not be legally bound by any reassurances issued by the current EU leaders.

"My concern is that these kinds of declarations of intention are based on trust .

.. These undertakings are being given by the current Commission ... By the time that this would actually become a political reality in which you would be able to call on this you would have a new Commission. And therefore there's no indication a new commission would be bound [by the letter] ... So my preference is the backstop gets completely pulled and if not whatever is promised must be part of the withdrawal agreement," Stuart said.

The UK House of Commons is set to vote on the withdrawal agreement later on Tuesday. May stressed in her speech ahead of the vote that rejecting the agreement negotiated by her government could result in a no-deal Brexit or no Brexit at all.

Nevertheless, many lawmakers, including May's fellow Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party backing her government in Commons, have expressed concerns over the backstop solution for Northern Ireland's border with the Republic of Ireland.

Change Britain lobby was established by Vote Leave campaign leaders after the 2016 Brexit referendum.