Repeal Bill: This Is Where It Gets Real

The government is to publish the Bill which will incorporate EU Law into British Law, to come into effect as we leave the EU. This will enable future governments to adjust and amend laws and regulations to better suit the UK’s individual needs outside the EU. That is the theory. Now for the practice.

At the moment any changes have to be agreed by the EU, including its parliament in which we are represented, so we are protected from a government taking away rights and protections from ordinary citizens, to suit some ideological or financial programme. That safeguard will be ceded to the British Parliament. However there are fears that May intends that much of it be within the prerogative powers of the Government to change, without parliamentary scrutiny. If this turns out to be the case, the Bill is unlikely to get through the Commons without substantial changes, if at all. So what happens then?

Meanwhile the EU is becoming exasperated by the lack of cohesion in the UK’s approach to the Brexit negotiations. The EU team has produced  position papers, laying out its agreed stance on all the keys areas, in total nine. The British have produced just one, on immigration, which has been described as inadequate and unacceptable by the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the EU parliament.

Only one thing is now certain. Brexit is in big trouble.