Lords gear up for Brexit bill battle

‘UK surveillance powers must change after court ruling’

LONDON, Jan 30, (Agencies): Britain’s House of Lords begins scrutiny Tuesday of a key piece of Brexit legislation, as a leaked government report said Britain would be worse off whatever deal it strikes with the EU.

Almost 200 peers have requested to speak during the two-day debate on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, many of them likely to be critical of its provisions to smooth Britain’s exit from the European Union, threatening another headache for Prime Minister Theresa May as she battles criticism from her own party.

The bill would repeal the 1972 act that made Britain a member of the bloc and transfer four decades of EU regulations onto the British statute books.

May’s government suffered one defeat when the bill went through the elected lower House of Commons late last year, after MPs demanded a vote on the final exit deal struck with Brussels.

Peers in the unelected upper House of Lords are threatening further amendments, including on new powers for ministers to amend the EU laws as they are moved across, which a Lords committee said were “wholly unacceptable”.

The main opposition Labour Party and the pro-EU Liberal Democrats will also seek to reject the government’s attempt to enshrine Brexit day in the bill.

Britain is due to leave on March 29, 2019, but the opposition argue the government may need some flexibility if the negotiations with Brussels on a departure deal run over.

May’s Conservative Party commands a slim majority in the House of Commons thanks to the support of a small Northern Irish party, but is outnumbered in the Lords.

Labour spokeswoman Baroness Dianne Hayter said this week’s debate would give “clear indications ... of the strength of feeling within the house that this bill is not fit for purpose”.

The Liberal Democrats, who have only a handful of MPs but a strong presence in the Lords, said they would also push for an amendment on a second referendum on any final Brexit deal.

Meanwhile, Britain’s economy will be worse off after Brexit whether it leaves the EU with a free trade deal, with single market access, or with no deal at all, according to the government analysis leaked to BuzzFeed News.

The “EU Exit Analysis — Cross Whitehall Briefing”, dated January 2018, is another blow for Prime Minister Theresa May, under fire for lacking leadership and a clear Brexit strategy as she negotiates Britain’s departure from the bloc.

A government source said the analysis was only part of the picture and did not give any forecasts for Westminster’s preferred option of a bespoke deal, while a spokeswoman said: “We have been clear that we are not prepared to provide a running commentary on any aspect of this ongoing internal work.”

Nevertheless, the analysis released at http://bzfd.it/2BBu2B6 spurred calls for the government not only to publish its full impact report but also to change tack and look again at staying in the European Union’s customs union and single market.

“The UK government’s own analysis makes clear that leaving the EU will, in all circumstances, harm the economy of every nation and region in the UK,” Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said.

Chris Leslie, an EU campaigner for Open Britain and lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party, said: “There is no mandate for this hard and destructive Brexit. No one voted to make themselves or their families worse off.”

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LONDON: Britain will need to amend its law allowing for sweeping powers to carry out mass digital surveillance after a court ruled on Tuesday that previous legislation was illegal, civil rights campaigners said.

London’s Court of Appeal backed a challenge led by lawmaker Tom Watson, deputy leader of the opposition Labour party, that it was not lawful to access personal data such as internet use and phone records where there was no suspicion of criminal activity or where there was no proper oversight.

The ruling referred to an emergency law passed in 2014 but its capabilities were incorporated into the more wideranging Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), called the “Snoopers’ Charter” by critics, which came into force last year.

“This legislation was flawed from the start,” Watson said in a statement.

“The government must now bring forward changes to the Investigatory Powers Act to ensure that hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are innocent victims or witnesses to crime, are protected by a system of independent approval for access to communications data.”

Britain has been at the forefront of a battle between privacy and security since former US security agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of mass monitoring tactics used by US and British agents in 2013.

The IPA gives the authorities broad surveillance powers which they say are vital to protect the public from criminals, paedophiles and terrorism. Critics argue it grants police and spies some of the most extensive snooping capabilities in the West.

In 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) ruled that the mass retention of data was illegal and that violating people’s privacy could only be justified by the objective of fighting serious crime and access to data should be subject to prior review by a court or independent body.

The British court on Tuesday agreed that accessing retained data without proper oversight or if there was no serious crime was inconsistent with EU law.

Britain’s Home Office (interior ministry) had no immediate comment on the court decision.

However, in November, ministers announced there would be a consultation on new additional safeguards in light of the ECJ decision to ensure access to communications data was limited to investigations into serious crime.

Campaigners argue the planned overhaul of the IPA does not go far enough.