Repeal Bill attack
Labour, Scots and Welsh gang up to derail plan to bring back powers from EU
LABOUR, Nicola Sturgeon and the Welsh government last night threatened to band together to derail the Repeal Bill that ends the EU’s power over Britain.
Ministers yesterday published legislation to repeal the European Communities Act, which enshrines the supremacy of EU law – and the European courts.
It will smooth the path to Brexit by transferring thousands of EU regulations into British law, preventing legal uncertainty.
But Labour’s Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer warned that his party would try to block the legislation when MPs vote in September as it will not bring a controversial human-rights charter into UK law.
The devolved governments in Scotland and Wales also said they would seek to veto the Bill, demanding more assurances on how powers on environment, agriculture and fisheries would be returned from Brussels to Edinburgh and Cardiff.
And the Lib Dems warned the Government faced a ‘ nightmare’ that could cost the PM her job.
But Mrs May said the legislation was essential and, without it, the country would not have a working legal system on the day of Brexit, expected to be in March 2019.
Under her plan, all 12,000 EU regulations applying to Britain will be copied and pasted on to the UK statute book.
Ministers will be handed so-called ‘Henry VIII powers’ allowing them to tweak any laws that need vital amendments without an MPs’ vote.
But Scottish First Minister Miss Sturgeon and her Welsh counterpart Carwyn Jones raised the prospect of a constitutional crisis as they threatened to block the Bill, which they branded a ‘naked power grab’.
They claimed that it would not return powers to devolved administrations, adding: ‘It returns them solely to the UK Government and Parliament, and imposes new restrictions on the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales. On that basis, the Scottish and Welsh governments cannot recommend that legislative consent is given to the Bill as it currently stands.’
Sources confirmed it was likely the Government would need a so- called ‘legislative consent motion’ from Holyrood for the Repeal Bill, though the Scottish Parliament cannot veto Brexit.
Meanwhile, Labour said it would vote against the legislation unless it brought the European Charter of Fundamental Rights into UK law.
It has been blamed in a string of controversial human rights cases. The Government said the charter of 50 human rights, which Tony Blair signed up to in 2000, is merely a ‘ catalogue of rights that already existed elsewhere in EU law’.
But Sir Keir said the charter’s inclusion was a ‘red line’, adding: ‘Labour are putting the Prime Minister on notice that unless the Bill is significantly improved, Labour will vote it down in the House of Commons.’
The Bill was given its first read-
‘Work with all parties’
ing in the Commons yesterday, but it will not be formally debated until autumn.
The Government has insisted that the Henry VIII powers will be limited to correcting minor legal issues. However, with 800 to 1,000 pieces of secondary legislation, known as statutory instruments, likely to be brought forward under the powers during a two-year window, there are likely to be objections from MPs and peers.
Labour MP Wes Streeting has said the powers are ‘undemocratic, unaccountable and simply wrong’. But Brexit Secretary David Davis told the BBC: ‘It is not just a ministerial signature, it is what they call a statutory instrument which… can be debated, can be voted on.’
Downing Street said the suggestion Scotland and Wales may not give legislative consent was ‘very pessimistic’, adding: ‘We want to work with all parties, MPs, devolved administrations, talk to them.’
AND so the battle for Britain’s future begins. With the ink barely dry on the pages of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, the massed ranks of Remainers are already pledging to sabotage it.
Their language yesterday could hardly have been more lurid. Tim Farron of the Lib Dems (with their mighty army of 12 MPs) threatened to unleash ‘ hell’ by launching a ‘guerilla war’. The SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon and Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones swore to resist what they described as ‘a naked power grab’ and ‘an attack on the founding principles of devolution’.
Labour, although theoretically committed to Brexit, added to the sound and fury by saying it would vote down the legislation unless we stay bound by the European Charter of Fundamental Rights (which would almost certainly mean staying within the jurisdiction of the European Court).
And inevitably, every hyperbolic antiGovernment utterance was given copious airtime by the fanatically Europhile and increasingly biased BBC.
So what’s all the hysteria about and are our hard-won freedoms really being imperilled?
Yesterday’s Bill repeals the 1972 European Communities Act, annulling our membership of the EU. And to prevent legal confusion the day after Brexit, it also transfers all EU laws on to the UK statute book – each to be amended, scrapped or left unchanged later at Parliament’s discretion. That seems pure common sense.
True, we are withdrawing from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, but all its provisions are covered by the very EU laws Britain is adopting. And we will remain proud adherents to the more global UN convention on human rights.
So the idea that after the split from Brussels our liberties will be suddenly curtailed is ludicrous, offensive twaddle.
The truth is the Remainers will oppose every move towards Brexit because they still hope to thwart the will of the people by reversing the referendum result.
For all their bluster, this is a straightforward and eminently workable Bill. Britain is committed to leaving the EU – which means leaving the single market, customs union and European Court – with minimum disruption. This is a simple and most practicable way of doing so.