The UK’s Enablement Acts 2023, Part 1: The Retained EU Law Bill
Ninety years on from the Enablement Act that gave rise to the most monstrous political movement in history, Britain is about to replicate the frightful final flourishes from the Nazi playbook on establishing a fascist authoritarian regime. Namely, rapidly restructuring the established systems of power and enabling the bypassing of Parliament.
The majority of the electorate is acutely aware of “Tory sleaze” and the continuous conveyor belt of corruption coursing from the Conservative Party, yet they don’t realise precisely how perilous a position we are in.
Over the last few years, the Ministry for Propaganda has preoccupied us with bewitching bulletins of prohibited parties, corrupt contracts and malign misrepresentations of our government’s intentions and actions. The largely non-dom-owned right-wing press and the BBC have been deliberately shielding the government whilst falsely justifying the laying of the foundations for the Conservative Party’s adaptation of Germany’s 1933 Enablement Act.
The deconstruction of democracy to date
We have all witnessed the deliberate and determined deconstruction of our already adulterated democracy and the piecemeal removal of the meagre checks and balances on our government’s power that once gave any semblance of credit to the fraying façade of UK democracy.
Under 3 Prime Ministers in as many years, the Conservatives have rushed reams of anti-democratic legislation through parliament, including the Elections Act 2022– giving direct oversight of the Electoral Commission to the ruling party, removing limits on foreign donations and introducing exclusionary mandatory voter ID; the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 — giving Ministers the power to retrospectively amend legislation to make their actions deemed unlawful by the courts subsequently lawful; the Police, Crime and Sentencing Act 2022 — criminalising protests under deliberately vague grounds; the recent amendment to that Act — now criminalising even thinking about protesting; and in the true spirit of fascism, we now have anti-strike legislation, the hallmark of any ascending authoritarian regime.
The impact of these Bills has already begun in earnest and will grow considerably as the limits of the powers within them are put to the test. Yet, senior opposition figures have largely watched on in silence while the media have justified these anti-democratic policies and both the opposition and the media have played a considerable role in enabling and normalising the rise of fascism in the UK.
The consequences of these Bills are severe but two other pieces of legislation that are now working their way through Parliament pose an even greater threat to British citizens. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (REUL) and the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill (LURB).
Together these two pieces of legislation will strip UK citizens of many of their protections and rights and hand near-dictatorial power to Ministers and newly installed regional Mayors while changing the structures of power in the UK beyond recognition.
This article is the first of a 3-part series, addressing the REUL Bill and detailing how the proposed powers within the Bill will likely be (mis)used, while the second will address the LURB in the same manner. The third will explain why both these Bills are key to the future plans for the current Freeport sites, how they will influence the transition from faux Freeports to insidious Charter Cities and what this means in the wider context of the international plans.
A three-pronged attack
The REUL Bill was introduced under Liz Truss during her transient Trussterfuck of turmoil, but its real champion is the Sovereign Individual, Jacob Rees-Mogg. It is designed to deregulate the UK in an expedited deceitful and dangerous manner that will sow chaos and ensure the UK’s citizens and environment are ripe for extreme exploitation.
The 3 main components of the Bill are:
· To provide Ministers with unprecedented powers to restate, revoke or re-write all EU-derived UK laws with minimal scrutiny by the absurd self-imposed deadline of December 2023
· To force UK courts at all levels to diverge from pre-Brexit EU case law
· To enshrine the supremacy of UK law over any restated EU law
While we remain bolted to the Brexit ballast, there is some need for a strategy to restate and review EU laws but there is no justification for arbitrary deadlines or subverting parliamentary democracy in the process. It could easily be done under multiple more carefully considered Bills, reviewing each government department or a specific sector in turn. Exactly as the Conservatives are doing with the Financial Services and Markets Bill for their banker buddies and donors. It is fine for the rest of the country to go to hell in a handcart but god forbid we should upset the financial services industry.
The blockbuster bonfire and bypassing Parliament
The government originally stated 2,400 laws were to be set ablaze in the furnaces of fascism, then in his customary stale sneering style, Rees-Mogg announced another 1,400 Laws fit for the bonfire had been found “hiding on the dusty shelves” of the National Archives. A recent update to the Government’s dashboard, resulting partially from the discovery at the National Archives, suggests there are now 3,745 laws to be pushed through the shredder.
Catherine Barnard, a Professor of EU Law and Employment Law at the University of Cambridge, recently stated there are a further 800 “orphan laws”, those not currently under the remit of any government department, that have also been earmarked for the pyre. There are still at least 55 laws from the National Archive’s discovery unaccounted for, along with the 800 orphan laws. The Government has now quietly admitted the list is not definitive and will be updated on a quarterly basis. How many others will be “discovered” between now and the self-imposed impossible deadline?
The Bill states that all EU-derived UK laws will simply cease to exist overnight by default on 31 Dec 2023. Those defending the Bill or downplaying the threat it poses to UK democracy highlight that there are mechanisms within the Bill for Ministers to retain or amend legislation as they see fit. However, there are two key issues with this argument.
Firstly, to review, retain, revoke or re-write >4,600 pieces of legislation in under a year, fully considering the potential impact their removal may have, is blatantly an impossible task. There are also many Primary Acts of Parliament that could be impacted by this Bill and will need to be evaluated. The Conservatives and their backers will seek to further exploit this issue by allowing as little time and dedicating as few resources as possible to the task.
A recent amendment to extend the deadline was defeated in the House of Commons and so once again, it is over to the House of Lords to try to temper the damage this Bill will cause. However, the House of Lords is increasingly stacked with corrupt Conservative Peers and many more are about to be added by Johnson and Truss.
Secondly, the powers given to Ministers to restate, revoke or re-write laws through secondary legislation is true to Tory tactics and anything but democratic. It bypasses proper parliamentary scrutiny, allowing Ministers alone to decide whether specific laws should be kept and if so, how they should be amended. If they decide to re-write a law, the only stipulation in the Bill is that “it does not add to the regulatory burden”, giving a clear indication of the true intentions of this Bill. It also sets a dangerous precedent for the further erosion of the supremacy of our Parliament in future, particularly when considered alongside the increasing use of such Henry VIII clauses in post-Brexit legislation, ultimately serving to empower the Crown at Parliament’s expense.
Preparing for the pyre
The breakdown of the 3,745 currently identified laws by the departments they affect can be viewed on the government dashboard (Figure 1), this visualisation highlights how severely specific government departments will be affected. The 800 orphan laws are yet to be included and it remains to be seen how many hundreds or thousands more laws will be identified with each update.
Of particular concern will be the significant burden placed on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), as it struggles to suppress reports on Pyridine exterminating an entire ecosystem around the Teesside Freeport and of sewage obliterating life in our waters.
These laws cover animal welfare; drinking water standards; air quality standards; the use of carcinogenic pesticides and insecticides known to be threatening entire ecosystems; food safety standards; defining safe levels of harmful substances; labelling requirements we depend upon to know what we are consuming; and, managing the disposal of wastes far more hazardous than the raw sewage now flooding our rivers and beaches.
The Treasury Department and the Department for Work and Pensions, DWP, have a lower burden of legislation to review from the dashboard, but we don’t know where the orphan laws or any other laws that remain to be discovered will belong and their eventual addition will likely change this picture drastically.
Some of the protections that workers could lose overnight include their right to maternity leave, holiday pay, protection from discrimination on the grounds of nationality and a range of requirements for safe working conditions. Part-time and agency workers could also lose the protections that afford them equal treatment to full-time employees. The 48-hour maximum working week has been repeatedly referenced as something the Conservatives no longer feel a need for in their Great Brexitopia, giving another strong indication of the type of laws that will be left to expire or will be hastily and unfavourably re-written.
Other key laws from various departments that could be snuffed out overnight include commitments to emissions reduction targets from the Kyoto protocol; controls on the use of radioactive substances; the provision of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents on low incomes; regulations on the standardisation and transparency of financial statements; regulations on the movement of goods before they have been released from customs control; requirements for the registration and approval of excise warehouse owners and the owners of goods held in excise warehouses; a range of safety and testing requirements for manufacturing cars and other larger vehicles; defence and security procurement regulations; and, the water framework directive, setting targets for the protection of all water bodies.
Attacking the people and Parliamentary democracy
Jacob Rees-Mogg may not be a Cabinet Minister for now, but who knows how many more Ministers will have been embroiled in scandals and sacked by the end of the year? How would Rees-Mogg re-write secondary legislation around food safety, toxic chemicals in make-up and other cosmetics, safe working practices or many other workers’ rights? It won’t be for our benefit. It will undoubtedly be for the benefit of the Conservative donors’ exploitative business practices.
Given half the chance, Rees-Mogg would have children cleaning chimneys 12 hours a day for a mandatory unpaid internship in soot-removal strategies, unless you could afford to buy a government-issued license to work; and he would have make-up, once again abundant in arsenic, so we could all accurately adopt his anaemic and ashen aura, with the decaying faces of the destitute providing the perfect picture of what “taking back control” was always really about.
How would Thérèse Coffey re-write secondary legislation around limiting radioactive material in drinking water, protecting wildlife or the use of insecticides driving ecosystem collapse? She would likely let those expire while busying herself burying the reports into the existing environmental emergencies and the chronic underfunding and understaffing of the Environment Agency that has already enabled the extreme exploitation of our environment.
Giving Cabinet Ministers the power to restate, revoke or re-write laws with no proper scrutiny is a flagrant attack on the supremacy of Parliament and one that will be deployed ruthlessly. What is the next step down this path? Emergency powers for Ministers to directly seek Royal Ascent for Primary Acts of Parliament? Could we see legislation permitting Prime Ministers to unilaterally write laws? Or will there even be a need for another step once Cabinet Ministers can scrap or amend vast swathes of legislation without any proper oversight?
The direct costs of implementing this Bill are estimated to be in the 10s of £ millions, with downstream costs of £83 billion also predicted in the years to follow once the Bill is passed. However, the true cost will be to the physical and mental health of the rest of us peasants who cannot afford to import essential goods from properly regulated markets.
Attacking the Courts
The second main component of the REUL Bill is to overhaul the UK court system and force a departure from EU case law in the decision-making of UK courts. The Withdrawal Act 2018 tried to direct the Supreme Court and the UK Court of Appeal to depart from pre-Brexit case law, however, the courts have largely been reluctant to do so and now the REUL Bill is forcing the issue.
All decisions made by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) since the Withdrawal Act 2018 are not binding on UK courts. The REUL Bill is extending this to include all pre-Brexit EU case law. Case law, or legal precedents, are the laws set by following established decisions of judges in prior cases and such decisions from the CJEU have been a major component of our legal system for the last 50 years.
The REUL Bill sets out a new test for higher courts in Clause 7 (3), forcing them to consider the fact that decisions of a foreign court are not usually binding and the extent to which any EU case law restricts the proper development of domestic law. It also includes new provisions to expedite referrals up the court hierarchy system and for Law Officers to be able to intervene and attempt to get laws changed.
We have a different system of safeguards in our legal system compared to the US, but this attack on our courts will ultimately serve the same agenda as the Republicans slowly stacking the Supreme Court with corrupt and inept far-right ideologues. In the US certain safeguards are constitutional and can only be relaxed or removed if the Supreme Court votes to reverse its previous interpretations, something we have recently witnessed with the Roe vs Wade decision being overturned. In the UK we do not have a written constitution, so our legal system rests entirely upon Acts of Parliament (statutes) and case law/legal precedents.
The implications of this for the UK legal system and the British citizens currently depending on it to protect them from our hostile government cannot be overstated. Courts will no longer be able to refer to historic standards set in the CJEU and will be using a new decision-making model, forcing them to ignore 50 years of case law at an unprecedented time of dramatic overnight change in the UK’s legislative landscape.
Supremacy of UK law
The REUL Bill’s third component is abolishing the principle of the supremacy of any restated EU law. Meaning, that if any restated EU law conflicts with other domestic legislation, then the domestic legislation takes priority. This final flourish in the Bill will further entrench and worsen the issues created by the overnight bonfire of regulations, extreme legislative powers for Ministers and the sudden jettisoning of 50 years of case law from our legal system.
Doomed Britannia
The REUL Bill is a significant threat to Parliamentary democracy and the legal system in the UK. It has nothing to do with cutting red tape for business or restoring sovereignty and has everything to do with eroding your rights and protections, priming you for exploitation and removing some of the remaining barriers for Freeports to begin deregulating on an unprecedented scale.
The main aims of this collective attack relate to the Freeport sites and I will discuss the specific implications for the Freeport plans in the final part of this series.
Whether you live in a Freeport area or not, this Bill will have serious consequences for you, on the 1st of January 2024 many safeguards and protections that we take for granted in our daily living will either simply cease to exist or will have been rewritten by Conservative Ministers aiming to satisfy their donors at our expense.
This will be a very different type of “letting it rip” than removing all the protections against Covid-19. Nonetheless, shredding, ripping or burning thousands of laws and drastically reforming the legal system overnight will have a similar result.
Let the bodies pile high.
Cormack Lawson
