Liz Truss has vowed to scrap thousands of EU laws remaining on the UK statute books by the end of 2023, despite warnings of “chaos” and disruption from lawyers, business leaders and union bosses.
The foreign secretary has pledged to repeal or replace more than 2,000 EU laws faster than her Tory leadership rival Rishi Sunak, who had pledged to do the same ahead of the next general election.
However, experts told The Independent that the Tory “arms race” to ditch Brussels’ rules would mean more “friction” for businesses, as well as putting labor rights and environmental protections at risk.
Since Brexit, the government has managed to remove or change only around 15% of the 2,400 Brussels rules and regulations retained in UK law.
But in a desperate attempt to appeal to Brexiteers from the Tories, Truss and Sunak are now promising to scrap or change 100 per cent of these EU rules in the next two years, much faster than the 2026 deadline proposed recently by the Brexit opportunities minister. Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Ms Truss said her new “sunset race” deadline of the end of next year “will speed up plans to get EU legislation off our statute books so we can boost growth and make the most of our recent freedoms”.
Jonathan Jones QC, the government’s former legal adviser, who stood down in 2020 over his Brexit policy, told The Independent that the rush was potentially “dangerous” because it would be impossible for parliament and relevant industries to scrutinize every change .
“There is an arms race to see who can scrap EU laws the fastest,” Jones said. “It is the risk of being chaotic. It’s pointless trying to change everything very quickly. You’re introducing a huge amount of uncertainty for businesses and consumers.”
He added: “It is potentially dangerous to remove some rules on food safety, chemical safety or labor rights, for example, without proper scrutiny. It is a completely strange way to govern.”
On Truss’ claim that a bureaucratic bonfire is about “freedom”, the QC said: “The idea that all EU law is red tape and therefore bad law is, frankly, nonsense. There there are almost 50 years of laws there, some of which the UK supported because they make sense.”
Britain’s Chamber of Commerce (BCC) previously warned that “deregulation by itself” could “complicate our trading relationship by diverging to the point where UK goods and services cannot be sold in Europe”.
Professor Catherine Barnard, deputy UK director of the Changing Europe think tank, also warned that further divergence of EU law would create more “frictions” for UK businesses already struggling with the changes being imposed for Brexit
“The more divergence there is in practice, the more controls the EU will want to impose,” said the EU law professor. “The more divergence there is, the more trade friction there will be.”
The TUC also fears that some employment rights enshrined in EU law will be removed or softened in the so-called “fireplace” of the Brussels regulations.
The union’s general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said the Tory leadership rivals’ promises were “cynical and reckless” and “threaten workers’ long-won rights”. He added: “We call this out for what it is: ideological posturing at the expense of ordinary working people.”
According to a government dashboard published for the first time last month, there were 2,417 pieces of EU law kept on the UK’s statute books after Brexit, but 229 of these have been repealed or replaced, and 182 more amended
The government’s dashboard shows that EU directives on genetically modified products, measures to maintain hygiene in the fishing industry and common standards for packaging waste have been repealed.
Last weekend, Sunak promised that he would “have scrapped or reformed all EU legislation, bureaucracy and red tape” by the time of the next election, vowing to carry out a review of all the rules kept within of the 100 days after taking possession.
Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are bidding for Brexiteers’ support as Conservative members
(Getty/PA)
Eleonor Duhs, a lawyer who worked on the government’s 2018 EU Withdrawal Act, has warned that a self-imposed “cliff” to scrap all Brussels regulations could drive investors away from the UK.
“Retained EU law is a broad body of law covering areas such as data protection, health and safety, environmental law, employment rights, consumer protection and food and agriculture” , partner at law firm Bates Wells told The Independent.
Ms Duhs said Truss’ 2023 target was “unrealistic”, adding: “It is hard to see how this policy can be delivered in a matter of months in a competent and responsible way.”
It comes as the European Commission launched four new legal actions against the UK government for breaking up parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol deal, after legislation aimed at breaking up parts of the deal was passed in the Commons.
Brussels said Britain failed to impose adequate controls on goods from Northern Ireland to Britain and attacked London’s “unwillingness to engage in meaningful discussion” about resolving the dispute of the protocol since last year.
A UK government spokesman said the legal action was “disappointing” and claimed goods leaving Northern Ireland for Britain posed “no risk to the EU single market”.
Mr Sunak and Ms Truss have vowed to push ahead with the protocol bill, which unilaterally rips up key parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, despite warnings of a trade war with Brussels.
A spokesman for Sunak’s campaign called the commission’s legal action “petty and nasty” and said it would go ahead with the bill “until and unless the EU says it is willing to come to the table to renegotiate the content of the protocol”.
Both candidates have pledged to scrap the EU’s Solvency II rules on the insurance market to help investors put more money into Britain’s infrastructure. Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi said this week that his financial services bill would ease Solvency II rules.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokeswoman Layla Moran described Ms Truss’ new deadline of the end of 2023 for the bureaucratic bonfire as a “nonsensical posturing” when more practical steps were needed to resolve the protocol .
“The Conservative government would do better to focus on fixing its failed trade deal with Europe, which is drowning our businesses in red tape and driving up prices in the shops,” he said.