David Cameron has become the latest high-profile Conservative, and the fifth former prime minister, to express their disquiet at the government’s plan to break international law with the Internal Market Bill. But the more important high-profile critic – because he still has a vote in the House of Commons – is Geoffrey Cox, Boris Johnson’s first attorney general, who has written for the Times that he cannot support the Bill because of its implications for international law.
Tonight’s vote on the second reading of the IMB is likely to pass opposed only by a committed core of rebels, whether they do so through voting against it or via abstention. The big vote is next week – on Bob Neill’s amendment to prevent any Secretary of State using the Internal Market Bill’s law-breaking provisions without a further parliamentary vote – and the big risk to the government is the gradual ebbing of support between now and then.
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