The retained EU law bill is an outrageously undemocratic attempt to transfer law-making powers from parliament to Whitehall
The House of Lords may be doomed, so reformers say, but it has a last chance to redeem itself. It is currently being asked to approve a Boris Johnson legacy, the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill. This bill is so outrageously undemocratic that it would have been flushed down the loo by any parliament before the gutless one that Johnson ushered in after the 2019 election. It blandly states that some 3,000 to 4,000 statutes passed by parliament over half a century of Britain’s EU membership must now be rewritten by ministers, not parliament, or they will lapse at “sunset” on 31 December this year.
This is astonishing. At the time of Brexit, it was agreed that, in general, regulatory harmonisation with the EU would remain for the time being so that trade could continue. Such laws covered swathes of public life: farming, food safety, health standards, travel, animals, employment rights, water and air quality, tax liability, consumer protection, even civil liberties, indeed almost every activity that would benefit from what Margaret Thatcher hailed as the largest market in the world.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
