Badenoch takes on Brexit law critics who ‘talk but can’t do’

Business Secretary rejects criticism from Tory MPS over her about-turn on bonfire of EU laws

KEMI BADENOCH has called her Tory critics “people who talk but can’t do”, after Brexiteers said that the Government’s about-turn on her bonfire of EU laws had scuppered her chances of leading the party.

The day after she scrapped plans to repeal thousands of Eu-era laws by the end of the year, the Business Secretary accused Eurosceptic backbenchers of having no idea at all which pieces of legislation they actually wanted to go.

The Government had originally promised a “sunset” clause on all laws carried over from the European Union by the end of the year under its Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

However, on Wednesday Ms Badenoch said that only a fraction of retained EU laws would be revoked out of 4,800.

Last night, she suggested the decision by Jacob Rees-mogg, her predecessor as Business Secretary, to give a deadline of the end of the year was a mistake, telling Talk TV: “You campaign in poetry and you govern in prose.” Attacking her Brexiteer critics who suggested she was a “lame minister” who was “having rings run round her by Remainer officials”, she said: “I actually laughed out loud when I read that.

“There are a lot of people who talk but can’t do. I went in there, I spent quite a few months going through the detail.”

She said that she informed Eurosceptic MPS of the decision to scrap the 2023 end date.

“I asked MPS who had been in that meeting what they wanted to remove, and they couldn’t say anything and I think that is more illustrative of the problem we have – that there are too many people who spend a lot of time talking,” she said. “I need to do the thinking and the doing.”

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, rebuked Ms Badenoch over her announcement of the changes.

The Speaker was displeased that the change to Government policy was not announced via an oral statement to the House by a minister, but instead appeared in a newspaper and MPS were updated by a written statement.

Ms Badenoch replied: “I’m very sorry that the sequencing that we chose was not to your satisfaction.”

But Sir Lindsay snapped: “Who do you think you’re speaking to?

“I am the defender of this House and these benches on both sides, I am not going to be spoken to by a Secretary of State who is absolutely not accepting my ruling.”

He added: “These members have been elected by their constituents and they have the right to hear it first and it is time this Government recognised we’re all elected, we’re all Members of Parliament and used the correct manners.”

Sir Iain Duncan-smith, the former Conservative leader, said he was “dismayed” by the change of policy.

“This looks weak and panicky,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if we were going to face amendments in the Lords; it was always going to be the case that we would have to use the Parliament Act. Now we won’t be able to if they do obstruct. So, we have a full majority in the Commons dismissed by a panicky and inexperienced Cabinet minister and a Downing Street politically adrift after bad local election results. It’s a gift to the Labour Party.”

Mr Rees-mogg accused Mr Sunak’s Government of behaving like the Borgias, a treacherous medieval Italian family.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “Politicians need to stick to what they said they will do.

“When Rishi Sunak resigned [as chancellor], he said in his resignation letter to Boris Johnson that he believed the public are ready to hear the truth – our people know that if something is too good to be true, then it’s not true.

“He then said something that people like me wanted to hear, and has failed to deliver it.

“I’m afraid it’s no good being holier-than-thou if you then end up behaving like a Borgia.”

In the Commons, Dominic Raab, the former deputy prime minister, urged Ms Badenoch to “resist the resistance in Whitehall” to the proposals.

He said that the Ministry of Justice under his leadership had identified a huge number of laws to repeal or to be altered, and said the Government should publish a “department-by-department analysis” of laws set to be scrapped.

He added: “Can I also gently suggest that she resist the resistance in Whitehall that suggests it can’t be done? If it can be done at the MOJ, I am pretty confident it can be done elsewhere.”