Geoffrey Cox

Sir Charles Geoffrey Cox (born 30 April 1960) is a British Conservative Party politician and barrister serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Torridge and West Devon since the 2005 general election.

Charles Geoffrey Cox was born in Wroughton, Wiltshire on 30 April 1960 to Michael, a Royal Artillery Officer, and Diane.

He was educated at King's College, Taunton, a private school in Somerset.

Cox studied law and classics at Downing College, Cambridge.

Cox worked as a barrister from 1982 onwards and was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 2003, two years before his election to Parliament.

Cox was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1982, and started practice as a barrister.

In 1992 he co-founded Thomas More Chambers, as its Head of Chambers.

Cox was first selected to stand for Parliament in 2000 by the Torridge and West Devon Conservatives.

In the following 2001 general election, he came second to incumbent Liberal Democrat John Burnett by 1,194 votes.

After the 2001 election, Cox was reselected.

He was appointed as a Queen's Counsel in 2003.

For part of his career as a barrister, Cox was Standing Counsel to the government of Mauritius.

His cases have included "civil fraud and asset recovery, commercial, human rights, defamation, and judicial review actions".

He has appeared as leading counsel in the Supreme Court or the Privy Council, and he was instructed to lead in commercial actions and arbitrations overseas, appearing in the DIFC, Mauritius and the Cayman Islands.

His criminal cases have included the Jubilee line corruption trial and successfully defending a member of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment who had been accused of war crimes related to the death of Baha Mousa.

Burnett announced in 2003 that he would not contest the seat again, and at the 2005 general election Cox defeated the new Liberal Democrat candidate, David Walter, gaining a majority of 3,236.

Cox made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 28 June 2005.

Cox was re-elected as MP for Torridge and West Devon at the 2010 general election with a slightly decreased majority of 2,957 votes (5.4%).

In 2014, Cox successfully defended the former Premier (and current Speaker of the Legislative Assembly) of the Cayman Islands, McKeeva Bush, on charges of corruption and misuse of office.

In March 2015, Cox successfully defended the deputy Editor of The Sun, Geoff Webster, in a trial of four journalists resulting from Operation Elveden.

The jury had to decide at what point the behaviour of those on trial could be considered a criminal rather than a serious disciplinary matter; even the lawyers found this difficult to define.

Cox subsequently publicly criticised the vagueness of the law, and its disproportionate use that had led to the prosecution.

At the 2015 general election, Cox was re-elected with an increased majority of 18,403 votes (32.5%).

In January 2016, it was reported he had a number of office expense claims for items, such as a 49 pence pint of milk, rejected by the Commons authorities.

In response, Cox said that his staff had been unaware of a recent change in the rules for office expenses, which no longer permitted office hospitality items such as tea, coffee or milk to be claimed.

In February 2016, Cox told the House of Commons that he had concluded, after examining the published renegotiation proposals, that the case for leaving the EU was now overwhelming and that he would vote to do so in the forthcoming referendum.

Cox resigned from the latter role in 2016 after registering more than £400,000 of outside earnings within the time limit.

Cox was again re-elected at the snap 2017 election, with his majority increasing to 20,686 (34.7%).

In the House of Commons he has sat on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select committee, the Committee on Standards and the Committee on Privileges.

He served as Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland under Theresa May and Boris Johnson from 2018 to 2020.

On 9 July 2018, Cox was appointed to the Cabinet as Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland.

On 9 July 2018, Theresa May appointed Cox as Attorney General taking over from Jeremy Wright following a Cabinet reshuffle, prompted by the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson.

On 1 December 2018, The Sunday Times newspaper reported the leaked contents of a recent letter written by Cox to Cabinet Ministers detailing the Attorney General's legal advice on Theresa May's Brexit deal.

The newspaper reported that his legal advice declared the Withdrawal agreement's backstop protocol would mean the UK being indefinitely locked into a customs union with the EU if future negotiations collapse and that the only way the UK could leave the Backstop would be the signing of a future trade deal which could take many years to complete.

The former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and three serving Cabinet members confirmed the contents of the letter to the Sunday Times.

In the 2019 general election, Cox was re-elected with 60.1% of the vote and a majority of 24,992 (41.8%).

In February 2019, Theresa May placed Cox in charge of negotiating changes to the Northern Ireland backstop in the EU withdrawal agreement.

On 24 September 2019, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled unanimously that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's prorogation of parliament was unlawful, overturning the High Court's judgment, given by the Lord Chief Justice, in the government's favour.

On the same day, minutes of a conference call between cabinet ministers (which included Cox) were leaked to Sky News.

The minutes of the call, which took place after the prorogation had been approved by the Queen, detailed that Cox briefly told the cabinet at that time that in his view the prorogation was lawful and constitutional and that any accusations of unlawfulness "were motivated by political considerations".