The Telegraph, January 4, Barney Reynolds
The Government is seeking the power to remove some of the vast swathes of EU-inherited law by the end of 2023 in its Retained EU Law Bill, leaving only that which it expressly preserves.
The bill also allows for preserved EU law to be modified or replaced, while the Financial Services and Markets Bill will permit similar adjustments to inherited regulation affecting the City.
However, without more bold action these bills risk delivering the opposite to what is intended: they could bake in EU law indefinitely. Once embedded, the inherited provisions could stay in place for decades.
The EU method is prescriptive and controlling, and economic evidence shows that it constitutes a drag on growth.
Our legal system is clear, operationally apolitical and much admired worldwide. The style of drafting and legal conceptualisation – which places reliance on the dispersed power of multiple individual judges to reach a judgment through case law precedent over many areas – gives rise to greater legal certainty than that achieved through EU law. Legal certainty is the lifeblood of our much-prized individual and commercial freedoms.
Although the Government appears willing to abandon some elements of EU-inherited law that are unnecessary or undesirable, the risk is that far too much will be left in place.
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