The Repeal Bill

The government has issued a warning to MPs not to vote against the Repeal Bill, because that would lead to a chaotic Brexit and people did not vote for that. This is a ridiculous argument.

First of all people did not vote for anything like the reality of what Brexit is and means. They voted for leaving a club they were tired of because it was the source of unwanted immigration and if we left there would be loads of money to spend on the NHS. People would actually be better off and a new dawn of some mythical global Britain would lead to golden times. Many of the leading pedlars of this drivel are now ministers in a cabinet split on almost everything but its own survival at any price.

That price does not and must not include handing executive power to the government to amend, jettison or revise what will become current law after Brexit, without proper parliamentary scrutiny.   That is all. It would not have been difficult to draft this Bill to provide for parliamentary oversight and it was an error of judgement, one of many, not to do so. Opposition parties are right to oppose it. If it scrapes through on the back of the DUP’s votes bought at great cost and without scruple, it must be subject to the most vigorous programme of amendment as it struggles forward to the Statute Book.