When Labour came to power, it assured us that Brexit was safe. It never promised, however, to refrain from efforts to sabotage Britain’s departure from the European Union. Leaked plans revealing that EU single market rules could be imposed on Britain without a full vote in Parliament expose Keir Starmer’s true colours.
Jars of marmalade could have to be sold as ‘citrus marmalade’ under the government’s planned EU food deal
The Prime Minister’s so-called EU reset involves a series of agreements to align ourselves once more with EU rules covering large swathes of our commercial life. One example is food standards and labelling: we saw an early result of that over Easter, as it emerged that jars of marmalade could have to be sold as ‘citrus marmalade’ under the government’s planned EU food deal. The response from a UK government spokesperson that British marmalade was ‘not changing’ was far from reassuring.
The madness doesn’t stop there: the government has in its sights Euro-agreements on cars, robotics, climate technology and much more. But there’s one problem: whenever we agree on new rules, as often as not the necessary legal changes have to get parliamentary approval. The administration’s latest wheeze is to water down this tiresome requirement. Legislation planned for the King’s Speech could allow some changes agreed with Europe in future to be introduced into the law of the UK by a mere statutory instrument. In plain English, all that will be needed is an order written by civil servants and initialled by a minister. This is being touted as a technical streamlining measure. It is nothing of the sort. The plan should worry us, and needs to be resisted.
We can start with the obvious objection: as both the Tories and Reform have rightly pointed out, this is a measure aimed at sidelining Parliament. Its object is to give the government, which appears to loathe Brexit and despise its supporters, a virtual free hand in binding this country ever more tightly to Brussels. True, in theory a statutory instrument is subject to Parliamentary control: any MP can submit an early day motion asking to have it annulled. But this does not guarantee a debate, and it is a racing certainty that no time will be found except perhaps for an official Opposition motion. Furthermore, there is no procedure for amendment: secondary legislation like this comes on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not a single statutory instrument has actually been stopped in this way since 1979. So the government spokesman who cooed in this case that “Parliament will have a role in approving new EU laws required under those deals via secondary legislation” was being at the same time strictly accurate and monstrously disingenuous. In all but name, this proposal gets very close to bringing back under another name the European Communities Act 1972, allowing Euro-legislation to be imposed on the country as a fait accompli.
But it gets worse. European negotiators aren’t stupid, and they will already be quietly quaffing prosecco, if not champagne, at this indication of a massive boost to their bargaining power. Currently they know that however hard they press, the UK can’t be pushed too far. Everyone is aware that whatever the views of the experts chaffering round the table, if a proposal impinges too much on UK interests or popular sentiment it might not get past Parliament; even if whipped through, it could cause mighty discomfort for the administration. All this discourages excess. If this new proposal becomes law, all these checks and balances go. Take it or leave it, Brussels will now be able to say of almost any demand, however outrageous. However much it outrages your MPs or voters, we know you can simply pass it and quietly smother debate. It’ll be back to the old days of the EU, only worse: when in the EU we could threaten awkwardness elsewhere unless we got concessions. Now we can’t even do that. So much for Keir Starmer’s promise that he will always look to the UK’s national interest.
Indeed it’s back to the old days of the EU in more ways than that. For indolent politicians, membership of the EU had one wonderful feature: it absolved them of a great deal of political responsibility. Complaints at unpopular measures could often be conveniently batted aside as cases of an unfortunate necessity: there was nothing one could do about them, since they were part of the price of membership of the European club, and had been agreed at the centre in Brussels. One of the best legacies of Brexit was to strip away this unseemly fig-leaf and once again make those elected into government answerable for what came out of it.
This new legislation is, one suspects, quietly aimed at restoring the old comfortable ways. Not for the first time, Labour has shown itself up as the party of political indolence and reactionary attitudes. This is a golden opportunity for Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage to call out its posturing, and demonstrate that, here at least, they are now the true progressives.
Comments