Kemi shreds more than 2,000 EU laws... and that’s just for starters!
KEMI Badenoch has scrapped more than 2,000 EU laws – with the promise of more to come before the election.
The Business Secretary said around 3,400 pieces of Brussels legislation would have been revoked or reformed by June 2026 – more than half of those that were carried over after Brexit.
However, a report shows that 67 per cent of EU law remains unchanged, four years after the UK formally left the bloc.
Writing to all Tory MPs to mark the fourth anniversary, she said she was making use of ‘newfound freedoms’ to ‘spur growth and innovation’.
She said the Retained EU Law Act was ‘one way that we have seized on the benefits of Brexit, to deliver long term change’.
‘It turned slogan into statute and took back control of our laws, ending the supremacy of EU law for the first time in 40 years,’ Mrs Badenoch added. She said the changes so far had included ‘ major’ reforms in employment law, cutting red tape and saving businesses up to £1billion.
The Cabinet minister added that it had benefited the wine industry by simplifying packaging requirements and opening up new products.
However, her predecessor Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg – who introduced the Bill when he was in government – told the Mail that the achievement was ‘relatively unexciting’. Mrs Badenoch made the announcement after she came under fire last year for scrapping a decision to allow all EU laws to expire automatically by the end of 2023.
The UK incorporated thousands of EU laws to minimise disruption to businesses in 2020.
The Retained EU Law Bill, announced under Liz Truss, initially included a December 31, 2023 deadline for these laws to expire automatically, unless the Government decided to retain or replace them.
But in May last year – around three months after she took over responsibility for the Bill on her appointment as Business Secretary – Mrs Badenoch announced the deadline would be ditched.
Her move provoked a furious reaction from Brexit-backing Tory MPs who held a testy exchange with her at the Commons European exchange committee.
Brexiteer David Jones accused her of lacking ‘courtesy’ and being ‘disrespectful’ toward MPs by slowing government efforts to scrap EU laws after the Bill had passed.
Conservative MP Richard Drax said her approach had created ‘distrust’ among some Tories who fear ‘ this bonfire won’t take place’.
But Mrs Badenoch denied the Government had ever promised a ‘bonfire’ of regulations before the end of 2023, adding she was ‘not an arsonist’.
Reacting to the delay at the time, Mr Rees-Mogg called the move an ‘admission of administrative failure’.
He said it represented the triumph of ‘the Blob’ and showed an ‘inability of Whitehall to do the necessary work and an incapability of ministers to push this through their own departments’.
Keeping to the deadline would have required the review of around 4,000 pieces of legislation by December 31. Some businesses complained this move would cause regulatory uncertainty. Around 600 laws will be reviewed this year instead.
‘Ending their supremacy’
THE Government has long promised a ‘bonfire’ of EU red tape. At last, we have a minister with the will to strike the match.
During our decades as members of the bloc, the regulation junkies of Brussels imposed a stream of laws upon us, often against the UK’s wishes and interests.
So well done Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch for seeking to take advantage of the benefits of Brexit by scrapping more than 2,000 of them – and pledging to remove many more before the election.
Yes, we should retain the rules that work and are essential to good governance. But far too many are hampering job creation, innovation, and growth.
Ditching them would not only boost the economy, it will send a clear signal that the UK is serious about taking back control.