The Brexit Papers

The Bar Council has published The Brexit Papers, which offer ministers and civil servants guidance on the most pressing legal and constitutional concerns arising from the UK’s departure from the EU.

The papers draw on the expertise of practitioners across several areas, who contributed free of charge. The Bar Council has not taken a view on whether the UK should or shouldn’t leave the EU.

Hugh Mercer QC, who chairs the Bar Council’s Brexit working group, said: “If we are going to minimise the adverse impacts on UK citizens, a huge number of highly technical areas of law need looking at in fine detail.

“For example we need to make sure that police and security services can co-operate so that criminals who go on the run can be stopped, and that parents who divorce in one country have the custody decisions upheld in another. We also need to restructure areas of law such as insolvency, competition and tax law otherwise businesses of all sizes could end up losing out.

“Our creative industries, for example, bring huge value to the UK economy, but we can only sustain that if our patents and trademarks continue to be recognised by the EU member states post-Brexit.”

Chantal-Aimée Doerries QC, Bar chairman, said: “As the representative body for the Bar, we have been working to identify the key legal issues which we believe need to be addressed by the executive and the legislature to facilitate a transition that minimises the risk of legal uncertainty, the loss of rights, and possible adverse consequences to the national economy, and that capitalises on the opportunities for post-Brexit global Britain.”