Welcome to In Conversation, the regular podcast of InCompass.

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This is Paul Adamson. I'm in conversation with Catherine Barnard.

Catherine Barnard is Professor of EU Law and Employment Law at Trinity College, Cambridge. We're here, Catherine, and thank you for doing this,

to talk about the phase two of the so-called Brexit discussions. But before we come to

phase two, can we talk briefly about phase one? Everybody seems to be under the impression that

Brexit, phase one, is now out of the way. But there is a thing this joint committee to be set up,

and maybe you can explain a bit about in a second, which is supposed to oversee the implementation of

the withdrawal agreement. Can you explain a bit about this joint committee and how much of a

potential stumbling block it might be to the progress of the phase two negotiations?

Phase one was the article 50 negotiations which

concluded in the withdrawal agreement which was an international treaty a legally

binding text and one that the UK has given effect to through the 2020

legislation but the trouble is like all treaties it's essentially skeletal I mean there's a lot in there, but there's still an awful lot to be sorted out on the Northern Ireland border, on what controls there may or may not be, on goods coming in from Great Britain and to Northern Ireland. There's also a lot of detail to be sorted out in respect to citizens' rights over Gibraltar and over all sorts

of other matters and therefore this joint committee was set up and for a lot of people that

sounds incredibly dull now of course in lots of treaties there's provision for political

cooperation over key matters but this joint committee is going to do quite a lot of heavy lifting,

particularly over really sensitive matters involving the Northern Ireland border.

And what's really striking is the total absence of discussion about the joint committee

and also who's going to serve on it.

Right. And if you look at the 2020 Act in the UK, just for the pedants amongst you, that's the

EU Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020, the one that rushed through Parliament in the end,

...