The UK Government is set to abandon its plan to review or scrap all laws passed while part of the EU by the end of 2023.
A controversial proposal, dubbed by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as a “bonfire of EU law, ” would have seen almost 4,000 EU laws removed from the UK statute book. This week, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch told pro-Brexit Conservative Party MPs that the majority of EU laws would be maintained, with only some 800 pieces of legislation removed by the end of 2023.
The Financial Times reports that Badenoch’s allies have not denied that the British government was now planning to ditch the “sunset clause” of 31 December 2023, where all EU laws would automatically expire unless they were revised or retained.
Badenoch reportedly told her Conservative colleagues that plans to modify or offload old EU law could not be rushed.
Kemi Badenoch Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of United Kingdom. Credit: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
The initial plan had sparked the ire of trade unions and business leaders, who believed the arbitrary date would lead to instability and a loss of protections.
Civil servants had also sounded the alarm over the end-of-year deadline, which would have put them under immense pressure to analyse each piece of retained EU legislation with a set of 25 questions per law.
Despite Sunak and ministers insisting this would have been possible, the latest U-turn will be seen as another example of the new PM taking a more practical approach to Brexit. It will also keep Britain more aligned with EU standards, raising the possibility of a future trade deal which could greatly benefit both British and EU businesses.
True to form, the move has sparked the fury of hardline Brexiteers, with various pro-Brexit newspapers calling it a “Brexit betrayal.” Pro-Brexit Conservative MP Jacob Rees Mogg once again laid the blame at the door of civil servants, using his GB News show to push the conspiracy of an anti-Brexit plot: “The problem here is that the Civil Service doesn't want to deliver.”
