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Julian Assange: can Ecuador’s embassy be stripped of its diplomatic status?

Lawyer Carl Gardner looks at why, by law, British ministers do have the power to de-recognise Ecuador’s embassy, but not without a serious diplomatic fallout. He concludes:

If I were advising the government, I think I’d say that, if ministers are determined to allow the arrest of Assange, it might be better simply to cut off diplomatic relations with Ecuador, send the ambassador home, close the embassy and arrest Assange after that. Ending diplomatic relations is the major sort of foreign affairs decision I doubt the courts would interfere with. But that’d be a major diplomatic call.

Photographs: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images; Oli Scarff/Getty Images