I think after six years I am finally beginning to understand the Brexiteer mindset. They just don't care about anyone else and have lost all reasoning. I say this after reading an article by Steve Barrett, apparently a lawyer, in The Spectator. He has ventured into politics and sets out his belief that the REUL Bill can indeed be done in 12 months. This is in response to a report in The Times suggesting the legislation is going to be delayed by the House of Lords. According to the report, “the scale of the task means that it is increasingly seen in Whitehall as an impossible deadline, with internal estimates that thousands of officials will have to be diverted to review legislation full time.”
It is a massive task, involving repealing, amending or replacing 4,600 or so EU laws that are in the UK's statute book, known as Retained EU Law or REUL. You would have thought this was blindingly obvious even to the dimmest idiot, but no.
Barret is obviously a deluded Brexiteer, and his ‘solution’ is almost laughably stupid. This is it:
"The first thing is to remember is that this is only a review of these laws. A one-year deadline to go through these alleged 4,000 laws and put them into one of three categories:-
1) completely worthless
2) Minister might think is important to save
3) we recommend the Minister saves.
That’s all there is to it – going through a pile of laws and putting on a red/amber/green sticky note. Any law the minister thinks worth saving would automatically get a three-year extension to 2026 under current plans."
Apart from the question WHY DO WE NEED TO DO IT AT THAT PACE? - it’s absurdly simplistic and he seems to be under the impression that the entire UK civil service is conspiring to block Brexit deliberately.
What Barret has described is the process as you might write it if you only had a fag packet and a crayon. The first problem is who is going to decide if a retained EU law is worthless or not? Me? If I did it I would keep them all. Presumably, if he did it they would all be scrapped.
What does "worthless" mean? Worthless to who? Laws giving legal force to statutory sick pay might be thought worthless to a small business owner. His workers might not.
According to the Times, each law would be subject to 25 detailed questions and multiple sub-questions.
I bet the answers to many of the questions are not even available inside the department responsible. Civil servants presumably need to consult stakeholders first. It’s not like a game of Jenga where if you pull the wrong brick, you can rebuild the tower in a few minutes.
He genuinely seems to think the EU commission, EU parliament and the UK government have been busy passing useless unnecessary laws for forty years. OK some might not be strictly essential, some have been superseded or become redundant. But even checking that will take a bit of effort.
The vast majority would I assume have been passed for a purpose. Does the purpose still exist? If a law is scrapped will it make any difference? If it does, who will it impact and how? To what extent? If it doesn't make a difference, why do it? Or more to the point why do it in 12 months?
Barrett gives examples:
Should the UK Pensions Regulator be treated like every other UK regulator? He says yes, but why is it treated differently? Personally, I don't know. There may be a very good reason or at least one that deserves to be understood.
Next, two laws the Department for Education uses concern a legal framework for UK membership of EU institutions, Cedefop and the European Training Foundation. He says we left those institutions so why do we need to preserve the mechanism for re-joining them until after the next election? Sarcastically, he asks, does someone think we might re-join?
My answer is yes it is absolutely inevitable? His is probably no. Even if 90% of the population wanted to rejoin he would still say no.
He says “UK can’t benefit until it stops using EU law and starts using its own.” This is completely insane. They ARE our laws. And I would question the use of the word ‘benefit’ in that statement. Businesses and industries are pleading to continue to be aligned with EU law. There is no ‘benefit’ only more uncertainty, cost, bureaucracy and inevitably a further loss of trade.
The Tory government has wasted 12 years trying to come up with ‘burdensome’ EU rules without success, and the two examples he comes up with are his best shot. Is Britain being held back due to some arcane law about our regulators? I really don’t think we are.
A senior government source told The Times that it was “inevitable” that the government would have to abandon its plans when the legislation reaches the Lords, which is expected to be next month. Peers have raised significant concerns about them.
The Times says:
"Officials say that the task of reviewing the 4,000 EU-derived laws is onerous, with each regulation subject to 25 detailed questions and multiple sub-questions.
"The plans are being opposed by business groups, trade unions and environmental groups. An alliance of more than a dozen organisations, including the Trades Union Congress, the Institute of Directors (IoD) and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said the proposed changes would cause difficulties for several sectors.
"A BEIS spokesman said: 'The programme to review, revoke and reform retained EU law is underway and there are no plans to change the sunset deadline for any government departments'.”
Barrett is delusional, it will NEVER happen. It is, however, a glimpse into his mind. He hates the EU so viscerally that he is prepared to risk chaos simply to erase the words 'European Union' from anywhere in UK law. No matter how many jobs and livelihoods are damaged or destroyed, no matter what it means for Northern Ireland, no matter what. He just doesn't care.
I am not a lawyer but in response to him tweeting his article, another lawyer says Barrett doesn't even understand the law in any case:
This article literally doesn’t know what it’s talking about because it ignores the effect of Clauses 3-5 of the Bill that abolish supremacy, direct effect and general principles of EU law.
— Caspar Glyn KC (@CasparKC) January 4, 2023
Mr. Glyn says, "case law that puts the flesh into many parts of law - it’s undocumented and unknown. It’s not on any dashboard. Before you repeal, you need to replace - otherwise you threaten chaos in swathes of law."
I am inclined toward Mr. Glyn's point of view. I really don't think you can simply run a bulldozer through great chunks of EU law that still has effect here without huge risks and I don't see any benefit from doing it at all, let alone in a year with all the potential disruption and effort needed.
Some people however think he's right:
Spot on Steven, shining light on yet more excuses from the rejoiner establishment. @RishiSunak could get this done in 2023 easily, but will he and more importantly, does he want to? Is he chief rejoiner along with Hunt, we will find out? Keep up the good work - cheers
— MyLunaticDog (@MyLunaticDog1) January 3, 2023
Aptly named as well.
