IN TODAY’S Guernsey Press, we reproduce in full a letter from the chief minister explaining why we were wrong in our editorial on Thursday to suggest that an international identity framework document he is to sign with Lord Chancellor Jack Straw was a worsening of the existing position.

This newspaper’s concern is that the framework implicitly states that the UK can act internationally on behalf of Guernsey without prior agreement, a weakening of previous statements where it says: ‘The UK will not act internationally on behalf of Guernsey without prior consultation.’ Yet in today’s explanation, the chief minister says: ‘There is, therefore, no question of Guernsey having relinquished the ability to opt out of international agreements. Guernsey only has the option to opt in.’

If that is the case, we asked him on Friday, would it not be more accurate for the framework to say something like, ‘The UK cannot act internationally on behalf of Guernsey without prior agreement? The response was: ‘Your suggested words would not be an accurate statement because they perpetuate the misunderstanding in relation to what happens throughout the entire process of negotiating, concluding and possibly subsequently extending international agreements.’

Yet if the only option is to opt in, why would Guernsey sign an agreement suggesting otherwise?

While islanders might be tempted to regard this as nit-picking, it is of fundamental importance to this island’s future. Jersey, for example, which has signed the potentially misleading wording, has also invested a great deal of time into looking at how it might become independent from the UK should it, as the framework suggests it can, impose international agreements, on taxation for example, without agreement.

And it is now clear that more than half of States members are unhappy with the framework and are likely to prevent the chief minister from signing it.

There is much that could be said about this, but one thing is inescapable. This island’s long and happy links with the Crown are the result of custom and tradition and are largely unwritten.

Trying to put it into words merely means that UK civil servants play safe, hence the dispute over the phrase we raise here.

And if, as the chief minister claims, the framework changes nothing, why on earth are we bothering to sign it?