London, 27 January 2020 (SPS) - In a session of the British Parliament on International Trade, the two members of the British Labor Party, Mr. Barry Gardiner, Shadow Minister of International Trade, and Ms. Valerie Vaz, Shadow leader of the House of Commons, asked the International Trade Minister about the agreement concluded between the United Kingdom and Morocco and the issue of its inclusion of Western Sahara, which constitutes a violation of international and European law, as well as the British law itself, which previously ruled that there are no sovereign ties between Morocco and Western Sahara.
In his question, Mr. Gardiner said: " In its decision issued in March 2019, the High Court of England and Wales confirmed that the territory of Western Sahara is separate from Morocco under international law. It ruled that the UK Government were acting unlawfully by failing to distinguish between the territory of Morocco and the occupied territory of Western Sahara. Yet the trade agreement between the UK and the Kingdom of Morocco purports to apply to the territory of Western Sahara, despite the total lack of consent from the Sahrawi people. Will the Secretary of State explain why that is the case? Given that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 process to ratify the agreement is now under way, is it her intention to hold a debate to discuss why the Government are proceeding to ratify a treaty that the High Court has ruled illegal? Is there an intention to organize a debate at parliament level that justifies the intention to ratify an agreement that the British Superior Court has been decided to be illegal? "
For her part, Ms. Valerie Vaz confirmed her colleague's question in the party, stressing that the remaining time to vote on the agreement is very short and that the government should find time to open a parliamentary debate on the agreement that will be ratified, which would illegally include the occupied territories of Western Sahara.
It should be remembered that the British government intends to put the association agreement with Morocco in hands of Parliament to ratify it in the coming weeks, however to date it has not announced that it would conduct a debate or a revision of it within the parliament. (SPS)
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