Davis leads Tory revolt at ‘power grab’ over move to ditch EU laws

A TORY row erupted yesterday after the former Brexit Secretary accused ministers of launching a power grab in a bid to scrap thousands of EU laws.

The Government has set an end-ofyear deadline to remove all remaining EU laws or replace them with equivalent UK legislation.

Supporters argued it was ‘an absurdity’ that thousands of EU laws remain in place. But yesterday Tory ex-Brexit secretary David Davis, a leading campaigner for Leave, and former Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland led Conservative criticism of the Government’s plans, claiming they eroded parliamentary sovereignty.

The dispute threatened to deliver an embarrassing parliamentary defeat as MPs sought to seize control of the process of removing EU laws.

A hostile cross-party amendment was tabled to force ministers to detail which EU laws it planned to scrap. To ward off opposition, Mr Sunak pledged not to water down protections on workers’ rights and the environment.

Business minister Nusrat Ghani said the new Retained EU Law Bill will ‘untangle ourselves from decades of EU membership’ and build ‘a more agile, innovative and UK-specific regulatory approach’.

But Mr Davis urged ministers to avoid transferring EU laws via ‘remote control on a ministerial diktat’. He said: ‘I campaigned [to leave the EU] to improve democracy to bring control back to Westminster, not to Whitehall. We are being asked to sign a blank cheque. The reason I didn’t like the EU was because we had laws imposed.’

Sir Robert Neill, another Tory MP, said: ‘This is being done with Henry VIII powers so wide as to avoid all scrutiny. That’s not taking back control, that’s doing the opposite.’

The Bill won final approval in the House of Commons last night, but will run into opposition when it enters the House of Lords in the coming weeks.

The cross-party attempt to give MPs a bigger say was defeated, despite some Tories backing the amendment.