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Barnhill, Jura. June 2015. (Thanks to the kindness of the Fletcher family).

Lost in Translation?

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A curious turn of events today with the Prime Minister seeming, at one stage, to have secured a preliminary stage in Brexit negotiations with a draft agreement at lunchtime seemingly agreed with the EU negotiating team. 

The  agreement was regarding the crucial border arrangement in Ireland based on a distinctive regulatory approach tailored to achieve further negotiations.

Arrangements seemed, assumedly, to have been predicated upon the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

But when the DUP's  Arlene Foster intervened with what Sky News described as a 'crisis call' to the Prime Minister in Brussels it emerged that any consensual agreement thought to have been settled had been premature.

https://news.sky.com/story/theresa-may-accused-of-northern-ireland-border-backtrack-11156810

Something seems to have been lost in translation.

Possibly the position between the UK Government and the DUP on the issue had been communicated on crossed wires. 

There did appear to have been scope for a deal earlier in the day.

Surely the Prime Minister did not undertake to reach an apparent agreement with Mr Barnier without some belief that the DUP supported the position.

Something appears to have changed.

It is possible that the parties had been reading from different scripts. 

That appears to have been the cause of the events in M v Home Office [1994] 1 AC 377 where a man seeking asylum in the UK having arrived from Zimbabwe with signs medically assessed as consistent with maltreatment was to have his return to Zimbabwe - after his case was assessed by the Home office - put on hold after an Eleventh Hour judicial intervention.

In the event Home Secretary Kenneth Baker appeared in court to clarify his position which had strayed towards contempt when the individual seeking asylum was returned to Zimbabwe via Paris in conflict with the judge's order that he was to be returned to the UK.

No opportunity was taken to return the man while his plane was in Paris and on landing in Zimbabwe he was not met by British Embassy officials as had been expected. 

He was not subsequently heard of again.

Mr. Baker certainly appeared to have been unaware of the judge's order and the view was taken that in a purported undertaking to the judge by a representative from the Home Office something had been lost in translation.

The problem lies in the significance of the consequences.


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