Insight 1998
-
20
23
Will the Retained EU Law Bill undermine Sunak’s Windsor deal? by Anton Spisak, 30 March 2023 In its current form the Retained EU Law Bill is incompatible with the Windsor Framework. Rishi Sunak should make big changes to the REUL bill or scrap it altogether. After nearly three years of passionate disagreements over the Northern Ireland Protocol – part of the Withdrawal Agreement that took Britain out of the EU – the UK government and the European Union have finally agreed on a way forward. The Windsor Framework, a deal that amends parts of the controversial protocol, promises to eliminate many of the practical difficulties that businesses and individuals in Northern Ireland have experienced since Brexit. But the Retained EU Law (REUL) bill, an extraordinary piece of legislation currently going through Parliament, could undermine this carefully negotiated deal. The REUL bill, the brainchild of Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former Brexit opportunities minister, would eliminate a special category of law – known as ‘retained EU law’ – which stems from the EU but which Theresa May’s government decided to preserve to ensure legal stability. The proposed bill would require the government to remove all these laws before the end of 2023, unless ministers decided to replace, amend or update them. This means reviewing around 4,000 pieces of legislation – although not even ministers seem to know the true number – ranging from the Working Time Directive to rules governing chemical usage and standards for the environment, in less than a year. Some elements of retained EU law have already changed. Post-Brexit immigration laws have repealed provisions relating to free movement of people, and EU state aid rules have been removed from domestic law. But government ministers argue that the powers they used to make those changes under the 2018 EU Withdrawal Act have now expired. That is why they are trying to pass a new law that allows them to remove all retained laws, except the bits they wish to salvage. What laws they save, and why they do so, is at their own discretion, and not that of Parliament. Some of the bill’s elements are more problematic than others. While the bill still gives ministers the choice of keeping EU laws or scrapping them altogether, it is more absolutist on three other salient CER INSIGHT: WILL THE RETAINED EU LAW BILL UNDERMINE SUNAK’S WINDSOR DEAL? 30 March 2023
INFO@CER.EU | WWW.CER.EU
1