REUL Bill
This week in Parliament, the House of Commons passed the remaining stages of the Retained EU Law Bill. This is one of the biggest changes in the history of modern Parliament in putting the seal on the return of sovereignty by removing the principle of the supremacy of EU Law in UK law, which Theresa May embedded in our legislation. This was one of the primary reasons why I and the other Spartans voted against her Withdrawal Agreement proposals, which forced her resignation. This was followed by Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister, our winning the General Election in 2019, and my negotiations for the statutory guarantee of British sovereignty contained in Section 38 of the Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020, which I negotiated with Boris Johnson.
This retained EU Law must be removed, and the Bill now goes to the House of Lords, in line with my European Scrutiny Committee’s recommendations in its Report last year. If the Lords resist this, as they are threatening, then they will have to be subjected to the Parliament Act, and the elected House of Commons will prevail with the majority which we still have from that General Election.
The existence of Retained EU Law on our domestic statute book was only ever intended to be temporary, and by passing this legislation, we remove the absurd concept of the supremacy of EU law in our domestic statute book by the end of this year.
Legislation passed by the European Union is passed by the Council of Ministers behind closed doors by majority vote, without even so much as a transcript. From our entering the then European Community in 1972, not one single European law was ever rejected by our UK Parliament, as the European Communities Act 1972 prevented this, which is a primary reason why I campaigned since 1986 to regain the sovereignty of our UK Parliament. We have ended up with thousands of laws which lack the inherent democratic legitimacy. I explained this in my speech, set out below. The Retained EU Law Bill provides the opportunity to assess the inherited EU law on our domestic statute book and decide whether it should be removed, replaced or updated, so that we can return to the single common law system of our great country, providing legal certainty. The passage of this Bill allows us to make our own sovereign laws on our own terms and to get rid of laws passed by majority vote and designed to subjugate us to the EU and, of course, to make us less competitive.
The passage of this Bill will enable us to create new business opportunities, increasing competitiveness and innovation. Key economic research has also demonstrated that this stripping away of inherited EU Law will substantially enhance the UK growth rate through the removal of EU legislation.
I cannot stress enough the significance of this legislation for ensuring the true sovereignty of our United Kingdom. I concluded my contribution to the debate on Wednesday with the following message to the British people:
“After 38 years in this House, I simply say a profound thank you to the British electorate—the 17 million who voted to leave the European Union in the referendum and endorsed that in the general election of 2019. I congratulate the Government, the Ministers and all the people in this House who have supported the idea of leaving the European Union. Above all else, I thank the British electorate.”
– and, of course, the British electorate most particularly means the voters in the constituency of Stone and our own Stone Constituency Association, which has been so resolute in supporting me in my campaign for the return of our sovereignty and our defence democracy
Speech (Report Stage – Retained EU Law Bill) – 18th January 2023
“Having endured the last 40 minutes, I am bound to say, as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, that although I will be relatively brief there are important matters that need to be discussed. I will raise them and give the House the opportunity to reflect on what I have to say.
This Bill was passed by this House without amendment. There were no amendments on Second Reading or in the Public Bill Committee. I have been Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee for many years, and I have been on this Committee since 1985. I draw the attention of the House to the European Scrutiny Committee report tagged to this debate, published on 21 July last year. As the Minister said, EU retained law was never intended to remain part of our domestic statute book. I am deeply grateful to the Government for today’s round robin letter to all Members and to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) for his work on the genesis of this Bill.
We left the European Union with section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 guaranteeing UK sovereignty and democracy, and therefore UK democracy itself. It was the culmination of a process that began with my sovereignty amendment to the Single European Act in 1986, which, at that time, I was not even allowed to debate. In turn, that was followed by the Maastricht treaty and a whole series of treaties, enactments and debates on the Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon treaties.
Incidentally, on the question of maternity pay—the only interesting thing mentioned by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders)—the UK actually has 52 weeks of maternity pay, while the EU has merely eight. On holiday pay, we have six weeks; the EU has four.
The views of the British people, as expressed ultimately in the 2016 referendum, repudiated the idea of our remaining in the EU by democratic vote, and the general election that endorsed that decision, under my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) as Prime Minister, gave the present Conservative Government a large majority. The democracy that we enjoy is based on our unique and universally envied constitutional arrangements, whereby laws are passed in this House by a simple majority of MPs representing individual constituencies, who derive their authority exclusively from those who voted them into the House of Commons… Nothing could have been more obvious than the fact that the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, and indeed many Opposition Members, simply do not have a clue about how the operations of the European Union function. I will deal with them in a minute, as the hon. Gentleman will find out—I would be interested if he would like to intervene and repudiate what I am about to say.
The Lords themselves—unelected, of course—are subject to the Parliament Acts, which may well prove necessary in relation to this Bill. This is therefore an issue of democracy.
I have watched and participated in the evolution of change in relation to European matters both in this House and outside, in referendum campaigns and the like, for the best part of 38 years. It is essential for those who are not so well acquainted with the manner in which EU law is made, which became more objectionable as the competencies in each of the treaties expanded, to appreciate just how undemocratic and unaccountable the EU system unequivocally is. I have to say that my own party is responsible for many of the problems that were created, but I am delighted to say that the democratic decisions of the British people have now demonstrated the need for this Bill, along with the fact that we have left the European Union.
The democratic deficit is one of the most important reasons—if not the most important reason—why we had to leave and why the Northern Ireland protocol arrangements and the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill are in need of immediate resolution. That Bill, which has passed all its stages in this House, is now becalmed like the Mary Celeste in the House of Lords, with nobody on board, pending agreement from the European Union to change its mandate and resolve this outrageous democratic deficit immediately.
As Con O’Neill, who negotiated our entry into the European Union, admitted in his 1983 report to Lord Hume—by then, far too late—the Government simply did not understand the undemocratic system that was and remains employed by the European Union. Many people, as is quite obvious from what we have heard in the past 40 minutes, do not have the foggiest idea what that means in practice and the way in which the European Union actually functions.
In a nutshell, every single law that goes to the Council of Ministers, which is the ultimate law-making body, does so by a majority vote of the 27 member stated behind closed doors, without even so much as a transcript and in total secrecy. Indeed, I had an exchange with the noble Lord Clarke of Nottingham on this matter when he was still in this House in 2017. He made it abundantly clear in his response to an intervention that the real legislative power of the Council of Ministers was exercised in private, going on to say,“I used to find that the best business at the European Council was usually done over lunch”—[Official Report, 14 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 215.], which is fundamentally different from the way in which we have legislated since we left the EU and in this actual debate today. By contrast, we are conducting business today, and taking democratic decisions, by a majority of this House, which is proof in itself that it works.
In practice, in the context of the sunset arrangements in this Bill, clauses 12 to 16 provide delegated powers to restate, revoke and/or replace and update certain retained EU laws, which are secondary retained EU law and a new category of “secondary assimilated law”. Many of these powers are subject to the negative procedure, but the affirmative procedure is required where primary legislation is being amended or substantive policy change implemented. Some primary legislation is in the Bill. Where the negative procedure applies, the scrutiny system is similar to the work done by the European Statutory Instruments Committee, and it will be for the House to decide how that evolves in line with the democratic decision taken by this House today.
When the original proposals for the first withdrawal agreement Act were brought into effect, at my suggestion—I introduced a Bill on the subject—all EU law was then deemed to be UK law. But then remainers got to work and came up with the concept of retained EU law, which asserted the supremacy of the principles of EU law and decisions by the European Court. We may have left the EU, but a massive ball and chain was embedded in that Act preventing us from making our own sovereign laws on our own terms. I add, by way of parenthesis, that the Prime Minister responsible for that Act resigned—thanks to the Spartans.
Those laws had been made under sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972. It is certainly true to say that since that date, not one single European law was ever repudiated by this House, because the provisions of that 1972 Act prevented it. We were therefore subjugated to the European Union and decisions of the European Court of Justice by our own irresponsible, voluntary abdication of the inherent and democratic procedures that evolved in this House over the best part of 400 years.
Our entry into the EU in 1972 was therefore a blind step into the void of an undemocratic and unaccountable system of government. These thousands of laws lack inherent democratic legitimacy, and must therefore be removed from and/or replaced on our statute book. The Bill also allows us to move back to the certainty implicit in the UK common-law way of doing things, as compared with the purposive interpretation of law by our judges, as laid down by the principles of EU law. Nobody can dispute that.
Our system has relied uniquely on a large bench of high-quality, independent judges, who address points that are brought before them when people or businesses apply to the courts for remedies for perceived damage or misconduct. Through our traditional decision-making process, which must be interpreted in accordance with what is precisely set out in our sovereign Parliament, the judges must develop what is generally regarded as a fair and equitable system of redress, and set standards of care and determine consequences of breach in matters of responsibility and duty.
We therefore have to strip away vast amounts of inherited EU law, which operates on the constitutional code-based model that is alien to our system, so that we once again have a single common law system in our country—provided, of course, that we have the right people doing it, such as the Brexit opportunities unit, and that the task can be performed smoothly. In addition, economic research shows that this step will considerably enhance the UK growth rate, not by lowering standards but by removing or replacing voluminous, poorly drafted, generalised, purposive EU texts.
If we miss this opportunity, we will have shirked the core and inevitable consequence of the democratic decision that was taken by the people of this country. We must make our own sovereign democratic laws on our own terms, although on occasion, we may well decide to complement laws made in the US, parts of the EU or parts of the Commonwealth. Exchange across different constitutional arrangements sometimes leads to improved ways of doing things and improved laws, which is a good thing.
Ultimately, however, the simple test is what this House decides as the democratic law-making system under which we are governed; what the judges determine in the best tradition of our constitutional arrangements, which have been built up over many centuries; and how they interpret those laws in line with what our sovereign Parliament has decided. The work of the Brexit opportunities unit and of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, to whom I pay tribute, as well as the work of my Committee, is absolutely enormous.
The principle of the Bill was agreed on Second Reading and, as I said, in the Public Bill Committee. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister and the Government for listening to the strong advice that I and others have offered. The Bill not only is justified democratically but, as enacted, will continue to be so. The freedoms that it will provide, in creating new opportunities for legislation, competitiveness and innovation, are self-explanatory.”
Speech (Third Reading – Retained EU Law Bill) – 18th January 2023
“After 38 years in this House, I simply say a profound thank you to the British electorate—the 17 million who voted to leave the European Union in the referendum and endorsed that in the general election of 2019. I congratulate the Government, the Ministers and all the people in this House who have supported the idea of leaving the European Union. Above all else, I thank the British electorate.”
