THE UK Government’s top legal adviser has been accused of producing “utterly risible” “first-term, first-year undergraduate tosh” in her attempts to defend Westminster’s international law-breaking Internal Market Bill.

In a statement published this afternoon, Suella Braverman, the Attorney General for England and Wales, says the bill will grant the Government powers which “may be exercised in a way that is incompatible with provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement”.

She also writes that the bill “expressly provides” for powers that “have effect notwithstanding any international or domestic law with which they may be incompatible or inconsistent”.

READ MORE: WATCH: The moment Tories admit Brexit plan will break international law

However, Braverman, who previously chaired the European Research Group (ERG), an influential group of hard-line pro-Brexit Conservative MPs, points to the “fundamental principle” of Parliamentary sovereignty as a fair and legal way of bypassing previous laws.

Parliamentary sovereignty is the idea that no law exists which a sitting parliament cannot rescind, and that no parliament can pass a law which a future parliament cannot alter.

In a paragraph the award-winning author The Secret Barrister summarises as “International law is important, but, y’know. Law schmaw,” Braverman writes: “It is an established principle of international law that a state is obliged to discharge its treaty obligations in good faith.

“This is, and will remain, the key principle in informing the UK’s approach to international relations.

“However, in the difficult and highly exceptional circumstances in which we find ourselves, it is important to remember the fundamental principle of Parliamentary sovereignty.”

READ MORE: 'Show courage and quit' Joanna Cherry tells Scotland's Advocate General

Braverman, whose real name is Sue-Ellen, concludes by arguing that “the legislation which implements the Withdrawal Agreement including the Northern Ireland Protocol is expressly subject to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty".

Taking to Twitter, Joanna Cherry wrote of the statement: "I’m not sure what they would call this at the English bar. But at the Scottish Bar it’s what’s known as a load of old mince."

Expanding on that position, the University of Cambridge’s Professor Mark Elliott called Braverman’s argument an "utterly risible" “non sequitur” which is “as embarrassing as it is dangerous”.

He said: “The Government’s statement is risible because it utterly misses the central point of concern.

“That concern is that the Internal Market Bill authorises Ministers to repudiate specific, critical and recently agreed legal obligations under the Withdrawal Agreement & NI Protocol.

“The Attorney General freely acknowledges this and concedes that the UK is required, as a matter of international law, to discharge its treaty obligations in good faith.

“She then attempts, but fails, to make an exceptionalist argument based on parliamentary sovereignty and dualism.

“The contention appears to be that because the UK’s internal constitutional arrangements allow Parliament, as a matter of *domestic* law, validly to enact any *domestic* law, this somehow makes it acceptable for the UK to breach *international* law. That is a non sequitur.”

READ MORE: Tory MSP 'flails around' when asked about UK plan to break international law

Elliott, a professor of public law, adds: “Contrary to the Government’s position, the UK, like every other State, is required in international law to abide by its treaty obligations. Neither parliamentary sovereignty nor the notion of dualism is any answer to that point.

“The UK may have left the EU, but it has not left the community of nations or the rules-based international order.

“Treaty obligations are binding upon the UK, and to suggest that they are not ‘because Parliament is sovereign’ is as embarrassing as it is dangerous.”

David Allen Green, a lawyer and blogger who writes for the Financial Times, added: “This really is first-term, first-year undergraduate tosh from the Attorney General.”

You can read Braverman’s full statement here.