Great Britain
Dispute over EU laws: Brexiteers accuse Sunak of treason
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has to answer questions in the House of Commons. photo
© Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament/PA Media/dpa
Sunak’s government actually wanted to declare thousands of laws from the time of EU membership invalid. But that’s legally complicated – Brexit hardliners don’t want to know anything about it.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is coming under pressure from the right wing of his Conservative Party because the government wants to abolish far fewer laws from the EU era than planned.
Economics Minister Kemi Badenoch announced on Wednesday that 600 more laws are to expire with the help of a new law by the end of the year. The government had previously announced that 4,000 laws from the period of EU membership (1973-2020) would be declared invalid. Badenoch has now acknowledged that there are “risks of legal uncertainty” if the laws initially adopted after Brexit are simply scrapped.
The Brexit hardliner and ex-business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg accused Sunak of breaking a promise. “Instead, he decided to keep almost 90 percent of the existing EU laws,” former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s confidante told the PA news agency. “This is an admission of administrative failure (…) and the inability of ministers to enforce this in their departments.”
The “Sun” reporter Harry Cole, who is well connected in Tory circles, tweeted that a “delegation of angry Brexiteer-Tories” wanted to complain to the responsible group whip (Chief Whip).
Critics, including numerous trade unions and associations, had warned that the project, also known as “bonfire”, could create gaps in labor law, for example. The government had introduced a bill called the EU Retained Law Bill to Parliament. A clause known as the “sunset clause” provided that laws from the EU-era were to become invalid at a stroke by the end of the year if they were not changed or explicitly retained by then.