Cabinet dispute over Jacob Rees-Mogg’s plans to repeal all remaining EU laws in less than four years cuts.
Brexit Minister of Opportunity is pushing for post-Brexit laws to expire on the “cliff-side” deadline of June 23, 2026, 10 years after the EU referendum .
However, The Guardian has learned that at least two cabinet ministers have criticized the proposal, while officials have said the goal is “literally impossible”, mainly because Rees-Mogg is also leading the removal of the Guardian. civil service.
In a letter to North Somerset MP George Eustice said “retiring” with some rules would be an additional cost to businesses and a waste of time for officials, while high-level Whitehall sources said fear of massive deregulation in the back. door.
The rejection came amid disputes within the government over how best to promote the “benefits” of Britain’s independence. Brussels is set to take legal action on Wednesday against the UK’s offer to unilaterally cancel the Northern Ireland protocol.
Rees-Mogg plans to publish a bill on Brexit freedoms this summer. In a letter to Cabinet colleagues seen by the Guardian, he proposed June 23, 2026 as the date on which a “expiration clause” should be activated, making all “EU conserved law” would be outside the statute of the United Kingdom. Alternative “significant dates in the Brexit calendar” are also being considered, such as 31 January 2030, which would mark a decade since Britain left the EU.
After a Whitehall review found that 2,194 EU laws were still retained in 180 unique policy areas, Rees-Mogg said a “push for change” was needed “to drive a process of regulatory reform that would remove unnecessary burdens.” .
Ministers were ordered to assess laws affecting their departments and said some with higher levels “should allocate significant resources”, but that no additional money would be provided.
Given existing plans to eliminate 91,000 officials, Rees-Mogg said ensuring that the deadline is met “will require careful prioritization of government-wide policy goals.”
A team should be set up in the cabinet office to help classify those laws that are “a high priority” to comply with, Rees-Mogg added, with a control panel that will monitor their progress and monitor new ones. Brexit’s fourth star of opportunities, made up of ministers and political officials.
Rees-Mogg assured them that several laws that ministers want to keep could be included in a single form of secondary legislation known as a statutory instrument (IS), but added: “We cannot predict how complex the SIs will be. or simple. ”
An annex to the letter to the Cabinet also admitted that there was a risk of “increased litigation” and that while the government would publicly pledge not to violate any international legal obligations, Rees-Mogg was “thinking” whether to do so. the most explicit in the text of the bill.
As a sign of the number of laws that could be dropped or reduced, Rees-Mogg said the impetus would be “deregulatory in ambition, but we intend to allow a reasonably broad interpretation of what is normative that is not limited to reducing the cost. business “and added:” Brexit is an opportunity to create our own rulebook. “
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He added that as the tax was an “especially complex” area of retained EU law, it would be a “tailor-made” Treasury-sponsored bill.
Cabinet ministers had less than two weeks to respond, and some did not meet the deadline, seen as a sign of the level of unhappiness.
In his letter, Eustice, the Secretary of the Environment, said that this approach “could mean wasting time on minor issues when I have been trying to focus the time of my officials on the flagship bodies of EU law that have the biggest impact. ” such as the Habitats Regulations and the Nitrates Directive.
Eustice said he feared that “the pressure of a cliff in the early hours of the evening would mean that officials would spend too much time” looking at minor laws, and added: “Doing them all at once would be the wrong energy.”
He also said that “sticking” to the details of some conserved EU laws, such as product composition or labeling, “costs companies money and is unlikely to make much difference”.
Another cabinet member admitted that there was concern in Boris Johnson’s main team about the issue. “This is not a debate we intend to have in public,” the minister said.
Top Whitehall sources said it would be “literally impossible” for departments to follow hundreds of retained EU laws and come up with plans to conserve, modify or remove them without additional resources.
They noted that a substantial number of laws passed by the EU were pressured by the UK government when the UK was still a member, or adopted as a result of obligations by international organizations.
A government informant suggested that Rees-Mogg’s plan might not be adopted due to strong opposition, adding that many hours of parliamentary time would have to be set aside to adopt or amend the preserved EU law. at the expense of passing other key bills before the next general election. .
Catherine Barnard, an EU law professor at Cambridge University and deputy director of the UK in a focus group on Changing Europe, said: “An expiry clause is an effective but crude mechanism to end entire sectors of retained EU legislation, much of which still plays a valuable role. Replacing EU rules that are worthwhile for domestic variation will require significant time for officials and parliaments when the country has other urgent priorities. ” .
A spokesman for Eustice said they would not comment on the leaked letter. The Cabinet Office said the Brexit Opportunities Bill “would make it easier to amend or repeal obsolete EU law that does not fit into the UK, ending the” special status “that the EU law continues to enjoy in our legal framework and save companies at least £ 1bn in a bureaucratic burden on the EU. “