Thursday, May 11, 2023
Because of “legal uncertainties” The UK is keeping EU laws for the time being
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “ripped up his own promise, not EU law,” said senior Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.
(Photo: picture alliance / SvenSimon)
Actually, the Brussels laws should end up on the “pyre” after Brexit. But the UK government is only repealing a small part of EU legislation so far. Conservatives are angry – and accuse Prime Minister Sunak of breaking campaign promises.
The UK government has dropped a deadline by which it would scrap the final EU-era laws, angering Brexit Conservatives. Instead of scrapping 4,000 pieces of EU legislation by the end of the year, the government will only repeal around 600 laws, said Economics Minister Kemi Badenoch, citing “legal uncertainties” as the reason.
After Great Britain left the European Union in 2016, the conservative government in London assured that it would make a “pyre” out of Brussels laws. Proponents of Brexit took part in the referendum on the exit with the explicit election promise to “take back control of British sovereignty”. “Unfortunately, the Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak) shredded his own promise and not the EU laws,” tweeted senior Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading ally of Sunak’s predecessor Boris Johnson.
Business Secretary Badenoch said the government had already “repealed or reformed” more than 1,000 EU laws since the UK left the EU in full in 2020. But she will not abolish any law “for its own sake”. However, Badenoch announced that it would revise the “Working Time Directive” adopted by the EU, which limits weekly working hours to 48 hours. There should be less bureaucracy for companies when recording working hours, for employees non-competition clauses in contracts should be restricted.
Several business groups, unions and the Greens had previously expressed concern about post-Brexit deregulation amid a cost of living crisis in the UK.
Source: ntv.de
hny/AFP
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