The TYE guide to Brexit #1 The Great Repeal Bill

**This is the first in a new series of TYE blogs, offering a brief guide to key Brexit events and Brexit profiles***

This time last week MPs voted through the Great Repeal Bill by 326 votes to 290. With the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (Northern Ireland), seven rebel labour politicians and not one rebel vote from the Conservative benches, the Bill will pass on to the House of Lords.

Although the House of Lords will send it back with many suggested amendments, the peculiar nature of our unelected upper House of Peers means that, in reality (and quite rightly), the burden of responsibility to amend the Bill will fall to the elected MPs in the House of Commons.

It is essential that politicians across the parties use their own judgement and vote on their conscience in the second reading. It is too easy for politicians across all parties to furrow their brows at the first mention of Brexit and mechanically mumble the party line or worse, using the ultimate deflector: “it’s the will of the people!” This is the moment for all politicians to show their mettle and meet the obligation of their office by voting in the best interests of constituents AND in the best interests of the country.

In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu: If the political price of your ascension to office is your silence, the price is surely too steep.

Of the many ironies around Brexit, the Great Repeal Bill is a particularly glaring example. Crafted in order to liberate us from “the supremacy of EU law”, the Brexit secretary David Davis proposes essentially the largest copy-and-paste of legislature in modern British history — some 12,000 regulations — onto the UK statute. As a consequence, the UK will still be answerable to all the same legislation!

On the other hand, it is unclear to what extent the former-EU legislation on environmental standards, labour protections and consumer rights will be watered down at a later date. Wherever you stand in the argument over EU bureaucracy and the long reach of its red tape, it is particularly alarming to envisage a post-Brexit environmental policy, maintained according to the whims of party politics, rather than as a collective effort alongside 27 other democracies within the EU.

No one denies that a bill is necessary in order to repeal the 1972 European Community Act (when we joined the EU). However, concerns have been raised about the Bill’s use of secondary legislation, which would enable ministers to amend laws without due parliamentary scrutiny.

Given that one of the slightly more palatable Vote Leave arguments during the referendum centred on reclaiming absolute parliamentary democracy; it is incredible that the current government has been dragged kicking and screaming into taking Brexit legislation through parliament.

For example, last year it took one extremely determined Gina Miller and three High Court Judges to make the government debate Article 50 (the decision to leave the EU).

Since the court verdict, they have all been victims of hate mail and death threats; such is the McCarthyite mood in some Brexit circles.

The House of Lords has already raised concerns about the blasé manner in which secondary legislation is used, which enables ministers to amend legislation that has passed through parliament without voting it through again. The Bill would positively encourage this practice, in light of the monumental task of ‘completing’ Brexit within the two-year timeframe under Article 50.

However, the much more serious threat to our parliamentary sovereignty is that the new Bill would empower the current government to change primary legislation entirely. In other words, ministers would not only be able to amend secondary legislation on an unprecedented scale…

In fact, this Bill would empower ministers to pass entire Acts of Parliament… without parliament!!

For those of you that are sick of reading about Brexit in the news (and I’m one of them, believe me!), these next few months are going to be crucial for the future of the UK and Europe. Like it or not, these political decisions are going to affect all our lives to a greater degree than we might care to imagine…

In the wise words of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird: “The only thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

…

Thanks for reading this post by The young European as a part of the new series:The TYE guide to Brexit. If you liked it, please do recommend it by giving it some applause (see 👏 on left hand side) and share it with friends & family on social media!