Typical hysteria and hypocrisy from SNP
YESTERDAY’S unveiling of the Great Repeal Bill marks a crucial milestone on Britain’s journey to becoming an independent sovereign nation once more.
This is the blueprint for restoring the supremacy of Parliament and ensuring that this country’s laws are again made in Westminster and Holyrood, not Brussels or Luxembourg.
For 44 years our legal system has been controlled by the unelected judges of the European Court. This Bill puts legislative power back where it belongs – in the hands of MPs, MSPs and judges here.
It will be an awesome task. All existing EU legislation must be transferred into British and Scots law before we can begin the process of throwing out the elements we don’t want.
And with thousands of individual pieces of legislation (which speaks volumes about how Brussels has insinuated itself into the minutiae of British life), two years is a tight schedule. But it must be done and Brexit Secretary David Davis knows he will secure a place in history if he can pull it off.
The real threat, of course, comes not from puffed-up, self-serving and in many cases low-calibre Eurocrats. It comes from many in this country.
Unsurprisingly, their rhetoric is becoming increasingly hysterical. Former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell says leaving the EU will be worse than going to war.
And the SNP’s behaviour is as predictable as it is cynical. Fresh from warning that Brexit is a leap off a cliff with no certain destination – that sounds more like its independence blueprint – the SNP is now piling on the hypocrisy.
With more powers likely to accrue to Holyrood as a result of the dead hand of Brussels being removed from the UK’s legislature, the Nationalists are complaining about a power grab by Westminster.
It’s a ridiculous claim, especially from a party desperate to wrest power from Westminster and Brussels only to hand it all back to the EU should it ever succeed in breaking up Britain.
With our economy growing strongly, employment at a record high and the world queueing up to trade with us, we should enter Brexit negotiations with optimism.
Theresa May needs a free hand to get the best deal for the country as a whole and should not have to concern herself with the SNP’s partisan attempts to strut on the international stage.