Islands’ new Justice minister ‘understands our relationship with the Crown’
A FORMER Remainer is Guernsey’s new man at Westminster following a cabinet purge by the new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
Robert Buckland, the MP for South Swindon, has been promoted to be Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.
The Ministry of Justice is responsible for managing the constitutional relationship with the Crown Dependencies. The outgoing minister, David Gauke, resigned as he could not back no-deal as an option.
Guernsey’s senior politician, Gavin St Pier, tweeted Mr Buckland his congratulations. ‘I know from our dealings when you were Solicitor-General that you understand both Guernsey’s constitutional relationship with the Crown and a number of consequential arising issues.’
Like most of the Cabinet, Mr Buckland voted Remain in the EU referendum.
However, he felt strongly about the need to uphold the result of the referendum and voted in favour of all of Theresa May’s Brexit deals. He also voted against a no-deal.
In the early days of the leadership contest, he backed Mr Johnson and co-signed a letter to a national newspaper supporting Mr Johnson as the candidate who would ‘unify’ the Conservatives.
‘As supporters of Boris we have been proud of the way that he has set out a positive vision of the future and not resorted to abuse or negative briefing.
‘Conservatives have always believed in the potential of this country.’
‘Let’s do it and deliver Brexit by October 31, unite the country and be ready to defeat Jeremy Corbyn whenever the time comes.’
Mr Buckland was a criminal barrister in Wales for almost 20 years and sat part-time as a judge before entering parliament in 2010.
Arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has been promoted to a position that has relevance to Guernsey.
He is now the Lord President of the Privy Council, which is one of the oldest departments of state and oversees the Crown Dependencies.
Mr Rees-Mogg, who is known for his almost unrivalled knowledge of parliamentary procedure, is also appointed as Leader of the House of Commons.
Deputy St Pier again offered a welcoming tweet.
‘Good luck to Jacob Rees-Mogg in this role – challenging at the best of times!
‘I am sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet in April when you were unable to travel to Guernsey to speak at the GFSC event but am sure we may have a chance to meet at some point in not too distant future.’
Another key relationship for the island is with the Department for International Trade.
The UK government has so far has failed to sign off an agreement that would extend World Trade Organization membership to Guernsey because of a disagreement over the compliance of the island’s intellectual property regime.
Liz Truss is the new Secretary of State for International Trade.
Deputy St Pier tweeted: ‘Congratulations to @trussliz on returning to Cabinet. I hope we will be in a position shortly to finally settle Guernsey’s membership of the World Trade Organization – a key piece of no-deal planning for the island.’
