Theresa May’s political tactics took a new turn when she announced the “Great Repeal Bill”.
Challenged by the High Court Peoples’ Challenge, her proposal that Article 50 should be triggered by use of the Royal Prerogative bypasses the need to seek parliamentary debate or a vote. Expediency does not belong with a constitutional change that affects several generations, nor does the responsibility for this change fit onto one (unelected) pair of shoulders.
Obviously, an act of parliament is required. Like a cheap magic trick she pulled the Great Repeal Bill out of her hat to achieve just that. An act of Parliament that takes all those wonderful EU protections for workers and people and instead of labouriously reading through them simply, in one fell swoop, transfers them to the British legislature. That will increase efficiency and bypass millions of pounds worth of ministerial attention, a commodity in sharply dwindling supply it seems. Seems like a very constructive idea. Just the sort of efficient law making that ends up costing the very freedoms it supposedly protects. Make the EU laws British and then start repealing them one by one?
The “Great Repeal Bill” does more than that. Importantly, it provides a basis by which the MPs have to vote down the EU Communities Bill – therefore voting on no longer being a part of the EU.
The triggering of Article 50 then would be a formality, already the parliament would have decided to repeal the terms on which we accept European law. We would no longer be in the EU. The clue is in the name: “The Great Repeal Bill” does not repeal the protections, it merely moves them into the Conservative crosshairs. What it does, however, is repeal the role of the EU in our political system.
MPs who oppose Brexit must oppose the “Great Repeal Bill”.