With the UK staring a long Brexit delay in the face, attention has turned back to the deal and whether there are any alternative routes for the UK to unilaterally withdraw, short of simply tearing the whole treaty up. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox is updating his legal advice to take note of Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which allows treaties to be terminated if there is a “fundamental change of circumstances”. Is this a likely prospect?

It turns out that the UK has unilaterally withdrawn from 52 treaties in the last 30 years, according to a written question in the Lords answered by Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmad last November. The question was asked by former UKIP leader Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Not exactly a Government shill…

That said, a House of Commons Library briefing from December was sceptical about whether the Vienna Convention could provide a way to escape the trap of the backstop. The problem for MPs is that the alternative is increasingly looking like being indefinitely trapped in the EU altogether…