8th August 2022
Here is a tweet and video to treasure:
A new Brexit delivery unit.
Reviewing every EU law on our statute book.
Starting in my first 100 days.
Let’s keep Brexit safe👇 #Ready4Rishi https://t.co/3cXn1rFhca pic.twitter.com/BjdRVJSvJz
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) August 8, 2022
But other than adding to the gaiety of the nation – or to its collective despair – this video and the proposal of a “Brexit Delivery Unit” are significant.
They signify a great deal about Brexit, and about what has not been done or understood by those in the governing party.
The United Kingdom joined what became the European Union in 1973 and it departed the European Union in 2020.
That is over 45 years of accumulated law and policy.
Brexit was never going to be “done” quickly – it may never be done at all, if Brexit is taken to mean that all that law and policy is to be disentangled and reconsidered.
And a great deal of that accumulated law and policy was shaped by the United Kingdom because it suited the United Kingdom.
Going through each regulation or other legal instrument derived from our membership of the European Union, and assessing whether divergence is both possible and beneficial, will take an extraordinary amount of time and effort.
And during a cost-of-living and energy price crisis, with increasing inflation and during a European war, you would think that the finite resources of the British state would have greater priorities than such a review.
There was also, of course, an actual government department dedicated to managing the exit and its implications:
https://twitter.com/LLocock/status/1556635543575752707
The department was abolished because Brexit had been “done”.
One gets the sense that those in favour of Brexit did not realise the legal and policy magnitude of the task ahead, just as they did not appreciate the economic and logistics consequences of departure.
That was all mere detail, it would seem.
For Brexit was not actually done to solve any law or policy problem or to address any economic or logistics concern.
To the extent there was a primary reason for Brexit it was to regain sovereignty – to “take back control”.
Well.
This is sovereignty, for what it is worth – there are over 45 years of accumulated law and policy from our membership of the European Union.
Two years after we have departed the European Union, the leading politicians in our governing party still do not know what to do with all that law and policy.
And so we have a leadership contender in 2022 announcing there will be a “delivery unit” for Brexit.
Which is an implicit admission that Brexit has not yet been done.
Indeed, Brexit has hardly begun.
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This proposal would really worry me (see also Freeports etc) except they don’t seem to deliver anything. Only make announcements. It’s so embarrassing especially as UK was so effective at guiding policy we wanted into EU law etc
We had Freeport’s but got rid of them because they disadvantaged the wider economy. And I agree, the candidates are heavy on announcements but will fail on delivery especially on the cost of living etc which is a real issue.
You couldn’t make this stuff up, could you? I mean literally no sane person would believe it.
Despairing
Let’s say the Statutory Funding Objective for pension schemes is revoked. Could that mean MFR valuations return overnight? What if part way through the calculations? Start again?
Does the government overturn Barber and Williamson and other judgements? Do pensioners who have benefitted have their pensions reduced?
If RS is serious, then there will be a lot of new, but costly work to be undertaken. Great for Actuaries, lawyers, accountants. Perhaps not so great for costs.
Could the government determine that equality legislation arose from an EU directive and thus woke laws can be repealed. Please no.
“Could the government determine that equality legislation arose from an EU directive and thus woke laws can be repealed. Please no.”
That’s precisely the subtext, in my opinion: protections and rights which are deemed to be inconvenient will surely be the real target of the exercise.
Just noticed the video says he will review or repeal post-brexit EU laws. Presumably no EU laws have been passed by Parliament post Brexit?
The strange – and disturbing- thing about this is that Sunak (and others) never feel the need to make the case for reviewing the legislation.
Basically, it’s Europe bad; UK good.
No doubt, there are gut feelings somewhere; there are always gut feelings.
That’s the trouble with experts. They aren’t driven by gut feelings.
Having gut feelings is everyone’s privilege, but when it comes to being driven I’d rather be driven by my brain: it’s reassuringly that bit further away from my anus.
Life seemed so much more stable when the Carpenters were singing ‘We’ve only just begun’.
I think they’ll be hiring rather than firing civil servants if they intend to do a fraction of the work needed.
They’re more likely to farm the mountain of work out to the private sector – another Cash Cow for their buddies and donors.
Which means it won’t get done, of course…
What on earth does “let’s keep Brexit safe” mean. We have left the EU. Unless we rejoin, which alas isn’t a possibility in the next couple of decades, Brexit is. It can’t not be. How can you keep leaving something you’ve left, safe? It’s just word salad.
Shoring up the base. They are all at it. Look at Jair’s latest wheeze…https://twitter.com/bradleymain17/status/1554463058424209408?s=20&t=iI6J988CLLtIDRnSAjdXvQ
I’m curious to know where this trope of “we cant rejoin” for 20 years comes from? Is this on account of the UK voters, or the EU?
Why cant we rejoin in, say 2030? What’s stopping us?
It plays to the paranoia and irrational fear mindset of Right Wingers.
They have to have (imagined) threats in their lives, something to rail against and to scapegoat, and this – an implied risk to the sanctity of Brexit – is clearly intended to fuel that paranoia and sense of victimhood.
And he is allegedly the smarter of the two.
You have had six years to review every EU law on your Statute book.
You have had six years to transform your fruit pickers and vegetable pickers into global leaders.
You have had six years to reintroduce imperial measures.
Where will you be in another six years time ?
They would need to start with the European Communities Act 1972 itself, which (sort of) abolished the Ultra Vires doctrine in Company Law in order to (again sort of) bring the UK into line with the First Company Law directive. The issue has been revisited several times since then but never satisfactorily, and the rest of Company Law has been built round the fudge. So there is a case for revisiting it but it would mean redoing Company Law. There are other similar examples. As you say, “Brexit has hardly begun” and it would, again as you say, be a huge task.
There was no plan in 2016, only slogans.
There is still no plan, since there is no recognition of the reality of the situation, particularly since it is turning out rather as forecast.
I fear the UK is like a person with problems heading for the bottom so that, from there, all is improvement.
We are not at the bottom yet.
As David repeatedly reminds us, words matter.
In this case, we need to carefully consider the specific language that appeared alongside the embedded video sequence. Three in particular:-
“…review or repeal…”
And there you have it.
He can literally “review” all of the claimed 2,400 pieces of legislation simply by having the whole lot printed off [as per the video], and then wander in to a room in which the paper is neatly stacked, review it, remark, “Yes, those are some particularly splendid stacks of paper. Well done everybody!” And walk out again.
In short, this is just yet another firm commitment to do absolutely nothing, carefully wrapped in a bit of jingoistic music and sprinkled with a healthy dose of self-deception.
Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.
If only that were likely. It’s not going to keep his Brexit fanatics happy
He should have no interest in keeping them happy. The next Tory leader will have about two years until the next election which they will lose decisively (barring a miracle, since voters care about outcomes and not policies), forcing them to resign. Since there’s nothing during those two years that Brexit fanatics can do to get rid of the leader, the new leader can do whatever they like with a view to a nice retirement after the next election.
I hope you are right, but I think you are underestimating the power of populist nationalism, both in the Conservative Party and in England as a whole.
There’s a touch of irony in Mr Sunak choosing German music to back his anti-Europe commercial.
They are all quite insane – it’s the only explanation. There’s nothing there but slogans and spin – just imagine what a half competent government with a 80 seat majority could have achieved over the last 3 years – but they have to coin a phrase “spaffed it up the wall”. Nothing will change with a new leader thankfully.
I suppose Rishi needs to make some visibility in this Silly Season, for that is all this is, a bit of noise. I wonder how the ballot process is going. I find it hard to believe the Tories have merely sent out papers and are leaving it to the faithful to make a free and uninformed choice. There has to be some debate and/or arm twisting going on behind the scenes. Or of course Rishi’s little video is a hint of what will happen to those ballots.
My feeling is that Brexit is going swimmingly and as intended. The real and unstated objective was to give the rich and very rich almost complete power over the UK. Any notion of benefits to the populace is completely illusory, the objective of Brexit is to make the populace poor and obedient. Going well so far.
But watch out, they are coming for the judiciary. Far too independent, loose cannons. Will have to be kept under close control. Budget controls will be the preferred method.
You are completely correct, Brexit, in the terms being used to define it, will never be done. Not in my or your lifetime. But we are now able to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda, a beautiful part of the world, I grew up less than 100 miles from Rwanda, I was not being facetious. And after all that, that’s what matters isn’t it? This is a very sad, very small country, getting smaller by the minute.
At some point in the far-distant future, the UK and those in charge of its governance may hopefully wake up from their delusional state and finally admit, in the face of incontrovertible facts on the ground, that Brexit was never ‘done’, never ‘worked’ and has been an unmitigated failure. History will judge Brexit as a colossal act of self-harm.
This video is an insult to all those dedicated ministers, civil servants, industrialists and experts from the UK and elsewhere who laboured over a generation or more to design regulations for effective markets in the EU.
The video is puerile. I thought it was satire. But perhaps our domestic political drama has reached the stage of an auto-satirising pantomine or farce. Two Oxford PPE undergraduates, treading the boards on the Edinburgh fringe.
Just one example. VAT is a European tax. It accounts for about 20% of the UK’s total tax revenue – about £130 billion each year.
Is the plan to abolish VAT – perhaps return us to the horrors of UK purchase tax? (Some of the complexity we have today, including the distinction between chocolate covered biscuits and chocolate covered cakes, is inherited from old UK tax law, not Europe.)
Or just to “review” all of it, make some minor changes, and declare the rest of it is fine?
And at the same time, we are going to overhaul our competition law, employment law, financial regulation, and a myriad other rules derived from or influenced by EU law? He really has no idea.
Here is a link to a helpful dashboard of all “retained EU law” or “REUL”. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/retained-eu-law-dashboard
That was prepared by Lord Frost (remember him) for the Brexit Freedoms Bill (whatever happened to that?) which was trailed as including powers to make it easier for ministers to amend, repeal or replace REUL “to deliver the UK’s regulatory, economic and environmental priorities”. An enabling act, if you would.
Perhaps when it “feels like 1972-3” again, the whole mess will be seen for what it is.
Getting closer these last 12 years… Energy crises, high inflation, strikes. On the bright side there is good music.
Pity the poor civil servants and lawyers in departments receiving an email along the lines of:
The Brexit Delivery Unit (BDU) requires you to identify all instances of retained EU law (REUL) for which your department is responsible.
Please provide a brief explanation of each law, it’s benefit to the UK, and your position on whether you intend to discard, replace or retain in each instance, along with a justification for your position (max 1 side).
If you intend to replace any piece of REUL please provide draft legislation ready for introduction.
If you intend to retain any piece of REUL please hand your departmental pass in to your HR unit and pass this message on to someone else.
Deadline close today.
Thanks
BDU