Brandon Lewis, responding to a question from Bob Neill in Northern Ireland questions admitted that tomorrow’s legislation does breach international law in “a certain, very tightly-defined circumstance”. He went on to say that this does happen when a country has competing commitments. The last time a comparable piece of legislation breached international law was in the Coalition Government’s relatively uncontroversial Finance Act 2013. Guido suspects this time there will be more of a fuss…

“Yes this does break international law in a very specific and limited way. We are taking the power to disapply the EU law concept of direct effect required by Article 4 in a certain, very tightly-defined circumstance.

There are clear precedents for the UK and other countries needing to consider their international obligations as circumstances change. I would say to honourable members here, many of whom would have been in this house when we passed the Finance Act 2013, which contained an example of treaty override, it contains provisions that expressly disapply international tax treaties to the extent that these conflict with the general anti-abuse rule.

We are determined to ensure we are delivering on the agreement we have in the protocol and our leading priority is to do that through the negotiations and through the joint committee work. The clauses that will be in the bill tomorrow are specifically there for should that fail, ensuring we’re able to deliver on our commitments to the people of Northern Ireland.”

That first sentence is a bold way to phrase it…