Kemi Badenoch in her Telegraph article implies she had to back down over removing a lot of needless or damaging EU law because the civil service were unable or unwilling to do the work to sort out the good from the bad amongst the 4000 laws they had identified and transferred to the UK from the EU. Her critics will say it is for Ministers to decide. She could have insisted that this was her priority and could have ensured enough resource to do the job. Her friends will say she was victim of a civil service that intends to defend every EU law, wishing to keep the UK aligned with Europe as closely as possible, and working with the EU and Opposition parties that never wanted the UK to leave. She certainly did not herself identify some of the more obvious ones and make the case for their repeal in public as you would have hoped she might do.
I do not buy the line that the civil service could not read and understand all the EU law in the seven years that have passed since the vote and offer sensible advice over the merits and demerits of the inherited laws. There is plenty of evidence that the civil service is alive to the EU legislative inheritance, and many cases where they have been keen to save it in case Ministers wanted to amend or remove it. The latest Energy Bill has a big chunk of draft UK legislation confirming EU laws and schemes and putting it into UK law. The civil service note providers were kind enough to tell us they are doing that in case the EU Retained Law Bill otherwise dropped these laws! The civil service was particularly keen to keep us aligned with EU data rules, so Ministers were persuaded to put all that into directly acting UK laws as well as transferring it as part of inherited EU law. There are other cases from finance to environment.
Conspiracy theorists will say the UK gave in to all the EU demands over the Northern Ireland Protocol. These always included stopping the NI Protocol Bill in the UK which would have resolved matters unilaterally and might have also included a secret promise to dump the EU retained Law Bill. Others will think this is just another example of weak Ministers giving in to officials who did not want to lose any EU law and who therefore decided to make it more difficult for any Minister wishing to do so.
We are offered a list claiming to be 600 measures which will go. Most of the items on the list have already time expired or relate to EU international agreements which clearly no longer affect the UK as we are not members covered by them. There are items relating to 1990s agricultural settlements long gone, to Olympics special measures for the London games, and a range of temporary controls for things like BSE which have passed. It is tidy to clear them up but makes no difference to the costs of doing business or the freedoms in our daily lives.
For this policy to work there needs to clear areas where unhelpful rules and charges disappear, so people and businesses can do more more easily. So Kemi should include getting rid of the carbon taxes and emission trading, the complex product specifications, many of the VAT impositions, simplify the data regime, abolish the Ports Directive, and many others often mentioned on this site. She should revisit Iain Duncan Smith’s Report on repealing EU laws which sits unimplemented.
May 14, 2023
Good morning.
Perhaps before people start blaming the Civil Service who, I have not doubt would very much like to rejoin (officially) the EU, we should look to those who we elect and entrust to manage our affairs and ask them; “have you read this ?”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-code/the-civil-service-code
It is a government website, Sir John so no need to fret.
May 14, 2023
Surely the real problem is that she never had the solid backing of Sunak/Hunt to give her the authority to force the civil service to act. Perhaps she should resign and point this out.
Reply Not true. She decided on this climb down.
May 14, 2023
Lifelogic,
Firstly I read it was the fault of recalcitrant civil servants.
Next I read Badenoch was to blame.
Then I read Sunak was prepared to retain the legislation but was very happy to let Badenoch take the blame.
May 14, 2023
The buck stops here?
May 14, 2023
It’s Badenoch who is to balme, though she is acting in line with the wishes of both the civil service and Sunak. And to think she was once hyped up as the right-wing, Brexiteer candidate for leadership! What a bunch of frauds the Tories are.
The government constantly does everything the wrong way round. We are told there is insufficient time for each EU law to be examined to see whether it should be retained, amended or scrapped. But the point is that there is no need to do this! The goal should be to simply revert to what was in place BEFORE the EU started imposing their rules on us. So the solution is to scrap ALL the EU laws and reinstate the pre-existing UK legislation â and if there was no law then so much the better: we can wait and see whether any rules are really required and if so what these should be. Returning to the status quo ante would be very easy, as the old legislation is there on the shelf ready and waiting.
As for spefic rules to be abolished, I have previously requested that the EU regulations on ebikes be scrapped, so that these can go faster than 15.5mph, and so that you can be powered without having to actually pedal. These rule changes would enormously boost the market for these ebikes, which would be good for congestion and even reduce our carbon footprint (which the government is so obsessed with!).
May 14, 2023
I never thought her a Brexiteer.
May 14, 2023
And when they run someone over on the pavement? They bomb around my town on pavements and cut throughs on the local estates with their drug stashes under their jackets, teenagers with ÂŁ5000 bikes! I told one lad off for nearly running over an old lady, and shouted that he should slow down or stick to the road, he told me to F-off.
Anything over 15mph needs a registration number worn on a high viz vest so we can report the idiots.
May 14, 2023
Peter, you read these different comments, but were they all from the same source?
May 14, 2023
hefner,
No different newspapers, on different days, unattributed of course.
May 14, 2023
Perhaps the closer they get to the top of the table the more they realise theyâre not actually in control of anything and if they want to keep their job and perhaps get the gold tickets that get you a lifetime of free tickets to events, book deals and millions in their personal bank accounts they have to do as instructed from above.
Boris and Trump are shining examples of what happens if you try and buck the system to your personal and families. We are told everything that challenges the orthodoxy are conspiracy theories until they all start coming true one after the other.
May 14, 2023
A-T,
I am not sure Boris Johnson ever tried to buck the system. I am of the opinion that he is a posh chancer doing whatever it takes to look after number one.
May 14, 2023
Yes, I admit he went off from where he started, and made lots of mistakes with an unknown pandemic (but then lots of people made errors over it) however a few times Boris âbucked the systemâ that I remember are:
1. When he didnât want to lockdown in early March 2020 and wanted to try to get the kids schooled through to the Easter holiday two weeks circuit breaker. The papers were reporting at the time that Macron was furious with him, but we were still letting in plane load after plane load of people and not putting them into quarantine.
2. When he pushed out the vaccine plans before the EU and got rounded on over that.
3. When he wanted to come out of lockdown just after Christmas in 2020 and everyone was warning him not to from the Unions and Starmer and Sturgeon etc. He pushed on and did it. Just concentrating on the peak transmission areas.
4. Just hiring Cummings was bucking the system. Trying to get Brexit done was bucking the system.
He wasnât ideal but he was better than Sunak!
May 14, 2023
+1
May 14, 2023
He clearly wasn’t doing what he was told. This seems to be trending round the world to varying degrees, with us at one end of the spectrum of trying to criminalise leaders who don’t do as they are told, and Pakistan at the other. America, Spain, Italy, Brazil have all played this game of lawfare. Boris’s first crime was to be perceived as the leader of the Leave campaign who swung the vote, and his last, final hanging offence was to bring the NIP Bill to Parliament, having previously brought the Internal Market Bill. This NIP Bill was to set us and N Ireland free. Now it has been dispensed with, despite having passed through the Commons unamended. That could only be done by getting rid of first Boris and then Miss Truss who inconveniently completed its passage. Cancelling the Retained EU Law Bill is the next step.
May 14, 2023
Stop blaming the civil service, start blaming the Brexiters. If this job of reviewing laws is as easy as Mr Redwood claims, why has no Brexiter done it?
Reply We have and have sent lists for repeal to government
May 14, 2023
Perhaps instead of sending âlistsâ send the top five with full explanations of how to expedite them. Once that is done, the next five and publish them.
Reply They are published!
May 14, 2023
Where are they published? They have not been published, have they!
Reply On this website
May 14, 2023
Belinda, are you or is a family member a civil servant by any chance ?
Brexit is not the problem, because we did not get so called Brexit at all, the problem is we are now stuck in no mans land, because the majority of Mp’s would not vote for Brexit proper during negotiations, instead they said we must take what is offered, and the wonderful EU gave us a lousy deal (not unexpected) because of that !
Thus we got exactly what the majority of Mp’s voted for, and that is a lousy complicated deal !.
Remainer Mp’s got exactly what they wanted so blame them for the so called Brexit we have.
May 14, 2023
Are they published with your inflation and GDP forecasts by any chance?
May 14, 2023
@Mark B +1
As you point out
“Civil servants are accountable to ministers[footnote 2], who in turn are accountable to Parliament”
So the Buck Stops Were?
May 14, 2023
The voters – It is the voter that give these MP’s their jobs.
May 14, 2023
Mark B
It would appear that a reminder copy of the Civil Service code of conduct needs to be sent out again.
But, the Conservative Party is very split and those MPâs who want to do the right thing are either pushed out or have become cowardly at putting their head over the parapet.
Unless the Conservatives get their act together for the best interests of the country – nothing will change. I may be wrong, but I donât think they can get their act together. The thinking is all wrong.
May 14, 2023
I have previously said that the current approach to REUL, pre and post Kemi Badenoch lacks priorities and objectives and that a small team of consultants could rapidly, in a few weeks establish the top ten regulatory impediments to a lively thriving business environment and thereby establish priorities for regulatory reform. I was not aware that Iain Duncan Smith has, apparently, already done so.
So we are back to the fundamental problem that the Conservative Party has no sense of purpose, no consensus view on what it wants to achieve in office. I suspect Kemi Badenoch has failed to secure backing in Cabinet for this reason and has been sat on because as Nigel Farage has astutely pointed out the Tories have never believed in Brexit. They do not want to diverge from the EU. They do not value independent sovereignty. That doesn’t make them all Remainers, but they actually don’t care enough about sovereignty to stand up to resistance to regulatory reform on the basis that EU law tends to be unnecessarily restrictive, not all but most.
But they should care a great deal about the primacy of EU law and the effect that has on the interpretation of law in British courts. Even if not a single REUL is repealed, at least the primacy of UK law and principles of UK law should be established by statute. Let’s remember that the rallying cry of Brexiteers was Who runs Britain?
Sunak has already agreed with the EU, through his NIP Framework, that EU rule in Northern Ireland is permanent, although the extent of it may vary in future.
It is perfectly clear that The Tories, as the party in government, has no intention of diverging from the EU, whatever new and junior ministers, even Kemi Badenoch, might campaign for.
May 14, 2023
@Peter Gardner
That is why those that support an independent UK in Government are being replaced by Rishi with those that wish to be fully integrated with the EU. The UK must never be a Sovereign Democratic Country is the only aim, the economy can got to ââŠ. in a hand cart for all the he caresâ.
May 14, 2023
Peter G,
I agree with most of this, but a ‘small team of consultants’ will tell you whatever you want to hear – but at considerable expense.
Sunak is a rootless internationalist and has no great concern about what happens in this country.
May 14, 2023
It seems the present UK Government are incapable of doing anything they suggest they wish at the moment.
I often wonder what the real policy of our Government is, so much talk in public, but behind the scenes a completely different scenario appears to be taking place.
Talk of wanting a growing the economy and future tax cuts, but we get tax rises and fiscal drag.
Talk of stopping the boats and taking back control, but we increase accommodation for illegals and refurbish barges instead of implementing existing laws.
Covid policy was all about saving the NHS, for what, for who, as we now have strikes and longer waiting times.
Talk of security at home, yet we cut the armed forces.
Talk of living within their/our means, but they increase National debt, and continue to spend/waste money like it is going out of fashion.
Talk of net Zero yet we do not have enough energy power to even think about it, let alone put it into action, ahead of the science and proven development of products required.
And so it goes on, and on, and on, failure, failure, failure.
The worst bit, all the other Party’s are the same, none of them have a bloody clue !
Thus the UK really is in trouble.
May 14, 2023
Well said there is no one standing up for true Britain
May 14, 2023
+1
May 14, 2023
This goes back a long time to when Mrs. T was still alive and well. She observed that, and I am slightly paraphrasing her here; “Politicians of today think that all they have to do to make something happen is to give a speech.”
It is laziness more than anything else. I have come across this from people who have worked in the Public Sector – ie It’s too hard. Or something similar.
May 14, 2023
It’s now at the point where voting is a waste of our time.
May 14, 2023
None more so then the next general election where most ballot papers will say :
1. Centre Left (Tory)
2. Centre Left (Labour)
3. Centre Left (LibDem)
4. Centre Left (Green)
May 14, 2023
@Berkshire Alan, @Mark B +1
Makes you wonder why we pay MP’s have MP’s, a Parliament, a Government and call them the UK Legislators. When they refuse to participate in the basics they have been empowered to do by us. They create havoc on the hoof then hide until the next speech is required.
May 14, 2023
Perhaps just to add one little point.
In favour of the Coronation or not, most will agree it was well planned, beautifully co-ordinated, and carried out to perfection, and on time.
The reason it went so well, few civil servants if any involved !!!!
The people in charge knew what was required, knew what they were doing, took control, and ran it with pride.
Perhaps that is a real lesson for government to take on board.
Get rid of the doubters and talkers, give clear instructions as to the task, and put those who are competent and know what they are doing in charge !
May 14, 2023
Whatever the cause happens to be, failure prevails and endures on so many issues.
May 14, 2023
You have lost control
The civil Serpents rule and most MPs are happy with that.
It will take someone with grit and vision to realise our ambition but 40 years of saying yes sir to Brussels has left you bereft of ideas.
We deserve better.
May 14, 2023
Ian+wragg
Sure as hell will not get it with Starmer.
May 14, 2023
Now it seems Starmer is preparing to allow EU people settled here and paying taxes to vote, along with 16 year olds. It is quite clear since the referendum, the way our rulers are going – back into the EU. Starmer tried to kibosh Brexit so is living up to his beliefs and is totally untrustworthy to be PM and is ready to sell us out at the first opportunity, along with the majority of MPs. A total clearout is required, but unfortunately all we get as a choice is ‘bad or worse’. How many EU countries allow Brits settled there to vote? Why EU people anyway, what about Americans or the rest of the world.? As we are handing the country over gradually and at ever increasing speed to the rest of the world via immigration, why not include them all?
May 14, 2023
Keir Starmer is badly misguided and unfit to lead anyone wanting beneficial outcomes for our country. Conservatives are better than he. However, being only slightly better than someone who is far worse reaches nowhere near good.
Conservatives should set highest quality standards, achieve them, and maintain them. They donât. They need a proper leader.
The Reform Party has the right intent, and may be the pressure release valve dissatisfied voters resort to as their only hope.
May 14, 2023
You choose to ignore parties that challenge the orthodoxy; that is your choice but don’t then complain there is only the choice of bad or worse.
May 15, 2023
Forthhurst.
No I don’t. I wanted to vote elsewhere but that opportunity was taken away when Farage stood down most of his candidates to let the Tories in, and it was so in my constituency so you are totally wrong in your assertion. I had exactly the choice I said, bad or worse.
May 14, 2023
Starmer promising 80,000 automotive jobs â thatâs 80,000 jobs on a EV assembly line using Chinese products, foreign labour, working from home or within 15 minutes of job, commuting on an EV scooter, on min wage âŠ.and youâll all be happy
May 14, 2023
Agree – Most MPs are happy for their civil servants to do all the work, as they’re busy with their second jobs
May 14, 2023
If MPs discharged their duties properly their other work should not matter. Efficient performers can cope with many demanding activities and do other work easily in their stride. However, the poor performers may fully time-serve their role as MPs, have no other work, and still be totally inadequate. The best MPs may be those whose talents attract additional demand; SJR being a fine example.
May 14, 2023
For some reason you use the pejorative term “conspiracy theorists”, a term specifically invented to suggest that opponents are somehow deranged.
I much prefer Gore Vidal’s phrase ” I am not a conspiracy theorist, I am a conspiracy analyst”. It is entirely clear that there no political will to effectively leave the EU in the Conservative leadership. Truss, who might have done so, was got rid of.
May 14, 2023
No political will in the Conservative leadership, as we see for Sunakâs choices of dire people like Hunt, Dowden & Hands. No majority of Conservative MPs either. Only about 100 at best are sound on this issue & only about 1O )like JR) are sound on (nearly) all issues.
May 14, 2023
@Lifelogic Only a 100 at best even approach being Conservatives. The Conservative Party needs to wake up, take back control of CCH or recognise their party has been destroyed from within. Time to find another hobby, religion you have lost this one.
May 14, 2023
What we should call it is group think, not conspiracy. There is no need for anyone to organize a conspiracy or carry it out. Tens of thousands of like minds acting independently have sabotaged Brexit.
May 14, 2023
The complicity theorists are the danger.
May 14, 2023
Just on the matter of Northern Ireland, I do not need to blame civil servants because I can work out how and why successive ministers have created the present unacceptable situation. Starting with George Osborne signing off a Treasury analysis which grossly overvalued our membership of the EU Single Market at around 6% of GDP, when the latest trade figures, for 2022, suggest that it was worth a tenth of that or less.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7851/CBP-7851.pdf
In 2022 with GB outside the EU Single Market UK exports of goods to the EU were about ÂŁ12 billion or 7% lower than in 2019 in real terms, which on a simple calculation would correspond to a loss of about 0.5% of GDP.
If ministers and Parliament and the mass media had accepted a more realistic estimate of the economic value of EU membership to the UK, which has always been no more than a marginal impact one way or the other, then Theresa May would not have needed or been able to use the largely fabricated problem of the Irish border as a pretext for keeping the whole of the UK under the economic thumb of the EU, and then there would have been no need to replace her with Boris Johnson who freed GB but left NI behind as a kind of condominium.
May 14, 2023
I mull over the prospect of a hung parliament next year, but the Tories could form a government propped up by the DUP. I think I know what the price of that would be, which may be the only way to ditch the NIP.
However much the Tories love the EU, they love being in office more.
May 14, 2023
Sir John, do you ever get the chance to speak to her?
Reply Yes of course. I told her in a meeting not to do this and gave her some ideas of which laws to repeal
May 14, 2023
Did she say why she wouldnât repeal the laws you suggested?
May 14, 2023
I can see that many laws and regulations affect another ministry or are cross-ministry and will be resisted by Remainer ministers.âBut those falling completely within Kemi Badenoch own department should be possible.
Heath would be delighted with today’s answer to his question of ’74: Who governs Britain?
May 14, 2023
That was Powellâs Question. The answer was ânot Heathâ.
May 14, 2023
If the Government wanted to repeal the 4000 pieces of EU legislation it promised to remove, it would do it.
The problem is the same one we had in 2016, when the British people voted to LEAVE the EU.
The Not-a-Conservative-Party was (and still is) a largely Remainer Party; it never wanted to leave the EU. Sunak’s Cabinet now has a majority of Remainers, including the rabidly pro-EU Chancellor. All the leading Brexiteers have been disposed of or were always left languishing on the back benches.
It doesn’t want to repeal these laws, so it won’t do it. The treacherous Not-a-Conservative-Government has decided that since we are no longer stuck IN the EU, they will instead keep us stuck TO it.
May 14, 2023
@Donna + 1, Laws, rules and regulations imposed, by an unelected, unaccountable body on a Sovereign Democratic Country, is a total Contradiction on every level. By their very being these dictates should be invalid. It shouldnât even need a law to reject them. The reason the UK HoC accepted them was as part of their subordinate position a higher power, this has now lapsed.
May 14, 2023
Hi john
Just look at the people holding back our country they don’t want BRITAIN to stay BRITISH three of them not true British people that’s why we won’t scrap EU Laws that’s why we won’t stop the illegal migrants
That’s why our prime minister is not doing anthing For The UK
he given NI to the EU The country is less
BRITISH every year just come and see Birmingham
Our MP don’t stand up for Britain
May 14, 2023
George Sheard
It’s not just the cities even in the smaller towns. Speaking to the police yesterday Oswestry is since the arrival of a load of immigrants has now got a massive drug and shoplifting problem where they are lifting branded goods and sending them ho.e to make even more money. The police are virtually helpless. Two officers on the night shift had to shut the police station to travel to another area to assist a colleague who was in trouble. We were left with no cover what so ever. Happened before wrote to our MP. Nada, just an automatic reply mail.
May 14, 2023
Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) There were 9,682 (2,743 remand, 6,214 sentenced and 725 non-criminal) foreign nationals held in custody as at 30 June 2022; representing 12% of the total prison population
May 14, 2023
And yet in the Guardian Glen Suella Braverman is being reported to the Bar Council because none of this is true and she shouldnât say it. She needs to cover her back with true crime statistics.
May 14, 2023
+1
May 14, 2023
Sir John, you rightly deplore the difficulty Kemi Badenoch is having in implementing what is supposed to be government policy. However, I don’t see where you comment on the (in)action of the man who last August asked you and your colleagues to vote for him as party leader, when his slogan was ‘Keep Brexit safe, vote Rishi Sunak’. How has Brexit been kept safe when we will continue to have thousands of EU regulations as the law of the land? The default according to the Retained EU Law Bill was to have been that EU laws were scrapped unless otherwise stated. Now the default will be that they will be kept unless otherwise stated. The PM does not think it’s worth his time to comment on this change, even though it is the opposite of what he pledged in January, that all EU laws would drop off the statute book unless converted into UK law.
May 14, 2023
@Philip P. +1 You like the rest of us have noticed he lied.
May 14, 2023
Government once blamed the EU for not doing anything,
Now we Blame the civil service
And the civil service just use the excuse of Bulling
May 14, 2023
Sunak’s a man with a mission to destroy his party and replace it with Globalist-WEF detritus. He’s halfway there
I see scum Labour want to give the vote to children and EU citizens so they can then buy them with bribes at each election.
May 14, 2023
+1
May 14, 2023
Itâs the only way theyâll get in and stay in and turn our Country over.
May 14, 2023
DOM
When growing up as children we were always told its either black or white and not shades of grey.
OMG that has taken on a completely different meaning now. Everywhere you look on the television, billboards, papers and magazine advertisements it is like being in a foreign country on holiday. Accident or design? The pendulum has swung too far the other way.
May 14, 2023
Turbo Terrier
I noticed on the Eurovision song contest last night – in between acts -there were towns and cities from around the world being shown, and the Earth. Subliminal messaging? Weâre all global together?
May 14, 2023
Kemi Badenoch should have been aware when accepting a ministerial appointment that collective cabinet responsibility would prevent her doing anything meaningful while this PM and Chancellor are in office. Perhaps sheâll soon announce that she wonât be standing at the next election. That would finally signal that this dreadful government is anything but Conservative and seal its fate.
May 14, 2023
@MPC those that point the blame at Kemi should be always reminded of “collective cabinet responsibility” , her actions are first and foremost as a result of directions recievd from the PM.
May 14, 2023
Its fate is sealed. Cant think anything positive to write or say about the useless Tory’s
May 14, 2023
Agree – its difficult to think of anything position over the past 13 years
May 14, 2023
I have better things to do with my time on a Sunday than get involved in internal party politics over EU laws that still apply here. There are much more important issues to consider, while the UK stares bleakly at the coming credit crunch as interest rates at 4.5% have their inevitable effect on the economy
May 14, 2023
YES- and we could start by discussing why the Europeans hate us when voting for the Eurovision Song Contest (sarc). Worse still – I believe we contribute the lion’s share of funding for this travesty. I never watch, but my daughters find it all hilarious.
May 14, 2023
I see that Sweden and Finland did well – a just reward, surely, for supporting Joe Biden’s war on Russia. I’m perplexed by our poor showing after all we have done to arm and assist Ukraine. A lack of gratitude despite Brexit.
May 14, 2023
Maybe because we jumped from the sinking ship first …apparently still owing our mess bill
May 14, 2023
Gosh I wish interest rates had been 4.5% when we were starting out in business and buying our first home. We had to take second jobs when we joined the ERM.
May 14, 2023
The civil service are knee capping Kemiâs career and she is going meekly into that dark night.
May 14, 2023
A sort of sadist’s view of 15 minutes of fame?
May 14, 2023
@Javelin +1 she will soon be replaced by a Rishi remainer.
May 14, 2023
Javelin – not at all she’ll get to be the youngest member of the Lords when her work is done – but what work?? – well to slow things down to a snails pace – the plan in the bigger scheme of things is to have us rejoin the SM and CU and that will take some time – nothing else makes any sense.
May 14, 2023
She was not up to the job.
May 14, 2023
Civil servants who are unwilling to respond to minister’s desires should lose their job. Start at the permanent secretary level and work down from there. One option: bring in external consultants to do the legislative review work.
This ‘government’ seems unwilling to govern. I am beyond-disappointed with it.
May 14, 2023
Your ‘option’ is an excellent idea, SW. It should’ve been taken seven years ago. Seven years in which independent analysts could have thoroughly gone through the regulations and recommended what steps to take. But under May and Johnson nothing like that seems to have been done. Instead it was all ‘Get Brexit done’ hype to keep Daily Express readers happy. At least Liz Truss did bring in the Retained EU Law Bill, but then we saw what happened to her. Brexit – What Brexit?
May 14, 2023
Dear Oh dear! You will never do!
May 14, 2023
Sea Warrior
Not more external consultants please.
I did some work for an American Company and on a Monday morning all the staff were assembled in the big conference room at 0830 for a presentation by a VP about the changes required and the route to be taken.
At the end of the presentation when your name was called you went through the door back to work. The remainder were told that all there personal belongings had been removed from their work stations and awaited them in a sealed box in the car park. Nobody was allowed back into the building. The exit doors were opened and as the filed out they were given their leaving envelope.
The next morning there was a completely different more focused atmosphere in the whole building.
May 14, 2023
ÂŽbut at considerable expenseâ
2021 hourly rate of a London solicitor: ÂŁ512
How many people hours do you think it would take to go through the (presently known) 4800+ laws inherited from our time in the EU?
May 16, 2023
Why would you use a London solicitor? There are plenty of solicitors around the UK charging much less. We could take some of the gold plating our civil service did, as many EU countries do. RDM suggests detailing the rules they feel need tweaking back to UK advantage.
May 14, 2023
Sir John what an unreasonable person you are – don’t you know that the more we diverge the more difficult it will be for the next generation to put it all back together again. Badenoch is under orders so don’t make her life any more difficult. These things about holding the status quo have been agreed with the EU and the US behind the scenes – we are not all stupid – sigh!
May 14, 2023
That the civil service is obstructive in defence of the laws it constructed in collaboration with the EU is in little doubt.
I would suggest that Kemi Badenoch’s problem is that she does not have the backing of the PM to resolve the impasse.
When Boris was faced with problem of getting the Covid vaccination programme underway he was faced with a CS mostly at home and disfunctional. He hired a banker from the private sector to organise it, which she did very effectively.
The solution is to hire a law firm to filter out that law which might be useful, with government approval. The remaining should be cancelled in one swift bill.
It won’t happen because the PM and the cabal that usurped government wish to stay closely aligned to the EU. All the signs from his time in office point to this. So get real folk, he knows he has limited time and that Labour will finish the job for him after 2024. You have only one option, vote Reform UK, the only Conservative party left.
Reply She has hired a legal firm. She ignores the good free advice MPs have given her on laws to repeal and amend
May 14, 2023
reply to reply …..friends of friends?
May 14, 2023
Reply to Reply
Well we know that Jacob Rees-Mogg has collated residual EU law in preparation for descicions on retention or repeal. You infer that part of the problem is KBs refusal to listen to the above, suggesting that she is in some way implicit in the failure to remove unwanted EU law. Have you produced a comprehensive paper on what should be retained/removed that none of us have heard about. Whatever, one thing is clear, a lot of people in Parliament and the CS are out to sabotage any wholescale removal in preparation for a return to the EU. As a tree in a wood can you not see what is going on. An increasingly confident Starmer is throwing out hints all the time. Collectively snippets that lead to one conclusion.
Reply Many of the proposals have been published on this site. There is also the official publication of the Duncan Smith report
May 14, 2023
John, perhaps you could put the proposals you published on this site in one blog header Brexit so that people can re-read the suggestions to try to understand why they wouldnât be taken up.
May 14, 2023
Legal firms have a conflict of interest. Fewer laws equal less work for them!
MPs’ job is to make or repeal laws and the legal profession to operate them.
May 14, 2023
Reply to reply:
Since the Not-a-Conservative-Party is fracturing and likely to lose the next General Election (with Rishi either sacked or voluntarily departing for California) it is of course possible that Badenoch is positioning herself for another shot at Party Leadership: which requires “softening” of her Brexiteer position and appeasing the majority-Remainer MPs.
May 14, 2023
Agricola,
I think it’s more a case that they do whatever it takes to look after number one. I don’t believe they have any firm principles.
As for the Reform Party, they are skint and will have no electoral success. That said, it would be wise to finish off the Tory party as its only purpose now is to provide a career path for chancers like Hancock, Penrick etc.
May 14, 2023
Response to Reply: that is madness! The taxpayer pays lawyers to defend a Minister who is refusing to undertake manifesto commitments from her own back benchers who are trying to push the taxpayerâs approved agenda. Iâm losing my sense of humour.
I feel like appointing a law firm to sue said Minister! Who does she think she is (as the Speaker said)?
May 16, 2023
I wonder if leavers could crowd-fund ‘a law fund’ to sue a Minister and their department for not following promises made. Jolyon manages to make a good income for himself; perhaps Farage and the other agitants need to actually take action instead of just talking the talk.
May 14, 2023
Interesting to see a prediction our host has kindly allowed me to make here being borne out – Starmer plans to introduce PR with no referendum. This will be easier with a lib-lab hung parliament than with a simple Labour majority. It is also reported he wants to give the vote to children of 16 and 17 and to foreigners from the eu (though in none of these countries are U.K. citizens allowed to vote). Clearly thinks they will mostly vote left. The left are clearly planning to gerrymander the electoral system to try to fix a perma-left govt. as also pointed out, the planned âsector by sectorâ renegotiation with the EU means SM membership by stealth. Last chance saloon for the Tory party (and for Brexit).
May 14, 2023
Donât you think PR could actually work better for us? It achieved total domination in the European Election.
May 14, 2023
I guess it would. The various trends in both the Conservative and Labour parties would likely get into new parties (a âright-rightâ, a centre right, a centre left and a âleft-leftâ parties) and the fuzzy mix and internecine fights that presently exist within both Labour and Conservatives would now be there for everybody to see. It might also help the real emergence of new parties that the present FPTP practically kill at birth (Who really thinks that Reclaim or even Reform has any future with FPTP?)
Looking over the Channel, how could Le Rassemblement National or La France Insoumise have risen within a FPTP electoral system, or AFD in Germany, or the Sweden Democrats, or the FPà in Austria, �
FPTP is the system preferred by the present crop of British politicians as it is the one that minimises the level of local efforts that the incumbents have to make to keep their seats.
May 14, 2023
Hefner well the SNP certainly debunk your theory about a small party building up big by concentrating on a specific area with a specific message. Remain/Reform spread themselves too thinly. The SNP bucked the fptp system and thought theyâd wiped out Labour, something the Lib Demâs who try to straddle both sides of the fence depending where they are standing wonât acknowledge. People should really take notice when the LibDems sell themselves as ToryLite they have said they will only work with Labour!
Thank you for highlighting one of the biggest downsides. Do any of those parties AFD, Swedish Democrats, FPO get seats at the top table or do they totally get ignored by stitch up agreements which is what it seems like from the outside? Some of these Countries it seems have the two big parties who end up working together to stitch things up as usual, and keep the usurpers out of the decision making, isolated.
May 15, 2023
Both Sweden Democrats and FPĂ are in present Government coalitions in their countries. AfD is the leading party in both the LĂ€nder of Saxony and Thuringia. RN and LFI are making Macronâs life very difficult.
May 15, 2023
What have they been able to stop Macron from doing? He’s reportedly gone a little dictatorish wanting his photo in all town halls lol.
May 14, 2023
Richard 1
Starmers gerrymandering is not a Labour first. Blair tried by allowing uncontrolled immigration, anticipating they might all gratefully vote Labour.
The current rules on voting allow a UK citizen resident in the EU to vote in local elections in the country of residence and in UK national elections and referendums for 15 years. I assume that for EU citizens resident in the UK the same rules apply.
I’m not so sure about your last sentence, I would contend that the consocialists in power are beyond their sell by date for anyone of Conservative persuasion in the electorate. Who would vote for more of such a patently , in every respect, failed bunch of undemocratic chancers.
May 14, 2023
Sunak’s globalist masters will be pleased. His pledges are all meaningless and insincere. We don’t have any party in the House of Commons that represents the interests of the British people, with the exception perhaps of the Reclaim Party’s sole MP Andrew Bridgen.
May 14, 2023
Many solutions to the civil servants defiance of Kemi, for instance: Hire three medium size law firms based in the red wall, give them 1200 EU laws each and a time limit of 2 months.
May 14, 2023
A couple of weeks ago, a barrister said on radio that his firm could probably do the whole thing in about a month. Would never be accepted, nor your suggestion as they don’t want to do it. They should have the courage to tell the public they don’t want to do it and that they consider the referendum valueless and intend to overturn it in due course, but courage is the one commodity most lacking in parliament, self interest being the main driver.
May 14, 2023
Graham 1946
I heard that lawyer speak too! He wanted to do it for the results, not the money. There are people out there willing and ableâŠ
May 14, 2023
Or perhaps repeal all the identified 4,000+ laws tomorrow and give our civil service one month to identify the oneâs we wish to re-instate âŠ.job done
May 14, 2023
We are supposed to elect the people that govern us so maybe we should be electing the civil servants.
May 14, 2023
This a disgraceful as it reveals the Ministerâs crass inexperience and weakness. Where are the âgrown upsâ in this administration? I really do despair.
May 14, 2023
You are constantly grappling with “The Ministry of Truth”. Kemi Badenoch has had Her truth updated also Rishi Sunak even Jeremy Hunt now believes the Bank of England are doing a good job. If the “truth” keeps getting updated then there is nothing to be accountable for. The Blob you mention is really “The Party” with its many ministries manned by “Party” members continually updating and rewriting to obscure or otherwise cover their tracks. Desired change can be brought in like ultra thin slices of salami. Liz Truss was “vaporised”.
May 14, 2023
Liz Truss was the only PM that talked and wanted growth
May 14, 2023
Do you have an ear problem? Intermittent tinnitus? All PMs (since I have been aware of politics, ie around H.Wilsonâs time) have talked of wanting growth, to provide jobs, to finance public services, to sustain the currency, to improve the balance of trade, âŠ
Tell me all about the recent PMs who were opposed to growth.
May 14, 2023
I believe you knew that I was talking about the recent Tory era âŠyouâre very mischievous indicating otherwise
May 15, 2023
But only Truss, since Thatcher, produced a (flawed) budget to achieve that.
May 14, 2023
To repeat myself, something I have said many times, the only laws, rules and regulations that should be enforce in the UK are those that are created by the UK Legislator, the Government and HoC, that can then be amended and repealed by those same elected representatives. If that is not the case we cannot call ourselves a democracy, certainly not sovereign, therefore there is no need for a Parliament or the MPâs that dwell there.
It should have been a simple act to repeal all EU Laws Rules and Regulations because they are not valid in an independent sovereign democracy. It could have been done in one single move, with the only proviso being that it could be âParliamentâ that reconstitutes if need arise any such Laws, Rules and Regulations in a UK context retrospectively.
It is a similar argument that can be levelled against ECHR, if our own Legislator cannot create, amend and repeal the Laws that govern the Country, our Daily lives they(our MPâs) have no right to be there.
In essence the Question is why do we have a parliament and elected representatives, when they refuse their only purpose?
May 14, 2023
+1
May 14, 2023
It is becoming clear that the UK payments to the EU drifting downward to 2024/25 was cleverly crafted because the EU knew theyâd cobble our weak government and have us back in conjoined paying up by the time the amounts are just to cover pension commitments (although that rate still seems high for pension commitments).
No-one dares to tell us all of the savings of leaving in a list, a full list of project savings, top up fines, the cost of Erasmus especially in training EU students for free in Scotland and giving them student loans, how many of those not repaying are from the EU so we not only covered their tuition we also covered their living and other expenses whilst England kids were paying all the bills.
Is the trade deficit with our largest trading partners in the EU started to swing in our favour yet or not?
May 14, 2023
âanother example of weak Ministers giving in to officialsâ The overriding impression coming out of the HoC, this Conservative Government, is that there is a refusal to do anything that puts the UK first, upper most in that it means that nothing must upset the âBlobâ, nothing must ask the âBlobâ to work in the first place for the UK. How come the State, the âBlobâ, the Civil Service keeps expanding, keeps getting more money, but keeps not delivering? No one is âmanagingâ, of those that should are being thwarted â the buck stops with the PM.
Spin that out to this months flavour the BoE they get it wrong, and wrong again, not even learning from history. The Ministers and the PM that are their management either they donât care or are refusing to âmanageâ them. Its not some benign act they(BoE) carry out all talk no cost â they are costing the UK and the UK tax payer Billions of pounds. The actions from Government to address the situation, zero, zilch.
There is an endless list of the Conservative Government having its head in the sand as to the damage they personally are doing to the UK and the UK economy. They are simply banking on the fact the alternatives to them could be worse. I think the electorate would now need to have proof of that.
This type of shambles would never happen under a Conservative Government (make of that what ever you like)
May 14, 2023
Under the UK legal system, we need a high bar set for having any laws in place. It should be more than ‘I think this is the best approach’; so we need a law.
The reason is we take compliance with our laws extremely seriously. For them to be effective, enforcement mechanisms are necessary. They deprive citizens or businesses of their liberty or assets, which is a big deal.
In addition, one law does it fits everyone, so we often end up with a long list of exceptions and complex case law. The cost to society is enormous as everyone starts consulting lawyers before doing anything.
Politicians should first have to demonstrate actual harm to others from non-compliance. Then showing a law is the best way of tackling the problem. Leaving it to people’s common sense, common law contracts or introducing other mechanisms like product standards are usually better at achieving the same objectives.
We did not pass this bar in many cases of retained EU laws. But ministers must start asking these questions to be able to scrap them. Else MPs should take things into their own hands and introduce amendments to scrap laws that do not pass this test.
May 14, 2023
There is a wider problem with this U turn. One easy attack line on Starmer is that he breaks lots of his own promises. For example he âpledgedâ to abolish university tuition fees but then U turned and said he was going to âmove onâ from that pledge. Now if the Conservatives point this out heâll just say that Sunak âpromisedâ to remove all EU laws and then broke his promise. Voters will conclude rightly theyâre as bad as each other.
May 14, 2023
More evidence that the civil service makes the rules while the government is made responsible.
Both government and civil service are a disgrace, and it is time something was done.
The problems have been identified, but who has the guts and stamina to make effective change? Nobody it seems.
Replace the heads of the civil service with a private company initiative – Get rid of the old rotten wood that is constantly challenging democracy.
May 14, 2023
There should be no misunderstanding on this issue of the retention of EU laws we are still – for some reason , still maintaining ; it simply points to the lack of direction of leadership in the Government . For it get to the point of discussion and presentation in the HoC and not for the emphasis to be agreed beforehand is a sign of lack of control . The Civil Service can interfere and advise in the process but they cannot decide . Conservative leadership is in a mess .
May 14, 2023
Over half a million people work in the Civil Service. Their work is directed from the top. You canât accuse an entity of this size of working together to thwart Brexit. It can only be orchestrated from the very top so the finger points to Government ministers. Stop trying to blame anybody else other than politicians. Itâs clear to me that Sunak and Hunt want to keep us closely aligned in order for Starmer to propose another referendum for us to rejoin once he becomes PM. Starmer is even proposing giving the vote to children and foreign nationals to aid this outcome.
May 14, 2023
When Kemi Badenoch attended the WEF meeting in Davos last year I knew she would not implement any Brexit benefits. She’s just another globalist.
May 14, 2023
Agree – No MP should attend the UN WEF Davos …its anti democratic and anti British
May 14, 2023
Sir JR
The planned wholesale erasing of EU legislation planned by Jacob made sense and smelled like Brexiteer panic.
A planned long term assessment of what we should keep or not would make much more sense.
So take it easy and let us do it rationally.
It reminds me of your continued talk about tearing up the NI protocol. Which would have solved nothing for NI.
May 14, 2023
Oh my! If Bill Brown is behind this then we know for sure its a cave in.
May 14, 2023
7 years not long enough? Whatâs irrational about repealing all the laws which we voted against?
May 14, 2023
Sir John
We talk of the power of the âBlobâ and their unswerving devotion of not being challenged as a conspiracy. Does anyone hand on heart think that âLiz Trussâ failed from a few simple adjustments intended to happen that challenged the âBlobâ orthodoxy. All the market fluctuations would have happened without Liz Truss. The BoE, the Treasury had a lot to hide that had been brewing for months(if not years), the market makers were just making money in the manner they always do.
When there clearly it was a wall of briefing from anonymous sources to every part of the media to bring her down.
May 14, 2023
True enough. De facto lies combined with a bulging too-difficult in tray. Reform it has to be.
May 14, 2023
Reform it is
May 14, 2023
It is clear that we are like the EU, run by unelected bureaucrats â the Civil Service, quangos and the judiciary â with Parliament merely rubber stamping their decisions.
In order to cement their position and develop the means of complete control they need to destroy the free thinking middle classes.
Hence their attacks on democracy and free speech starting with âpolitical correctnessâ through to âcancel cultureâ combined with the control of the state broadcaster.
Hence their attacks on social and institutional stability through massive immigration.
Hence their attacks on wealth through Net Zero with the intended rationing of energy, food, healthcare, heating and transport by 2050 if not earlier.
This is what was meant at COP 26 when our PM, then Chancellor said :
âSo our third action is to rewire the entire global financial system for Net Zero.â
May 14, 2023
âShe [Kemi Badenoch] certainly did not herself identify some of the more obvious ones and make the case for their repeal in public as you would have hoped she might do.â
Well, Kemi Badenoch attended the WEF 2023 Annual Meeting in January.
May 14, 2023
No wonder both the country and our Brexit are in the mucky stuff. When the Government ‘workers’ (an oxymoron) refuse to work AND get away with it, what chance have the real workers in this country? And why are these government employees not sacked as they would have been elsewhere, in the PRIVATE sector?
When is our leader going to take charge up there in Whitehall and Westminster?
Even with a Labour government we’ll just get more of the same and see our country reduced from Great Britain to an insignificant little island off the coast of the ‘mighty’ (another oxymoron) EU.
Is there really no one who is capable of leading this country available? Help!!
May 14, 2023
Derek, our taxes and rates pay them and they are openly taking the Mickey now, with their we only need to work four days per week, oh but you mugs need to pay us as though weâre doing five days, and weâll do it at home so we can take our kids to school, the dog for a walk, go to pick up the kids, do the laundry, oh and a bit of work.
Do one! Is what they should be told. I hope whichever Council it was allowing this get ousted by the local electorate when this comes truly to light rather than getting covered up.
May 16, 2023
I’ve been thinking about these councils getting away with this like 4 days work for 5 days pay nonsense (a 25% pay increase) e.g. the LibDem-run Cambridge council and I wonder how many of that council’s electors are students who don’t pay Council tax!
If the Tories had their act together their leaflets would make sure this decision was well known in that council area and that services have dropped as wage costs have increased, more pay for less work! Remember who is paying that Council. They should be reminded local elections aren’t about national government they are about local spending and local decision-making. This Council is wasting their money.
May 14, 2023
[…] The Minister and the blob â John Redwood […]
May 14, 2023
Probably the most effective department for a while was the newly reestablished Department for Trade, because it had to recruit professionals from outside the civil service, as there was no internal expertise to call on.
I suspect that the only way to succeed would be to establish a Department for Deregulation, with expertise drawn from outside the civil service in the relevant areas. Its proposals would be given priority in public consultations.
May 14, 2023
To think that 40 ‘Conservative’ M.P.s voted as first choice for Kemi Badenoch to be Prime Minister when she is absolutely useless as a Minister, let alone a Prime Minister. As she can’t handle (and Sunak evidently can’t handle) getting rid of EU laws with several more months to do so, if they genuinely wished to do so, why don’t they appoint a special Minister specifically to do so (as Boris Johnson successfully did with vaccines and even Jim Callaghan did with the 1976 drought)? Or aren’t Badenoch and Sunak up to even thinking that one up? There would be plenty willing and probably competent people to do so (with a small dedicated team of hand-picked officials) – maybe the original vaccines Minister, Nadhim Zahawi or maybe Steve Baker who has gone native in Northern Ireland and needs shunting out of there or maybe John Redwood or maybe Jacob Rees-Mogg who has rightly loudly criticised this fiasco.
Mitch McConnell (Republican Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate) has this last year been talking much about ‘quality’ in politicians (a novel concept for politicians!). He’d find precious little ‘quality’ among the Government and Opposition politicians in Britain. In fact among Conservative M.P.s there is far more ‘quality’ outside the government than inside the Sunak Government!
May 14, 2023
Agreed.
May 14, 2023
Shouldn’t we vote this rotten government back into office when the chance comes, lest we get a replacement that actually wants to and can do things, thereby risking upsetting our exorable declne?
May 14, 2023
I have changed my mind since 2020. I now think that the UK was right to leave the EU, an organisation featuring a shameful lack of democracy.
However, EU data protection law was pretty good. It made spam e-mail messages (and phone calls) illegal. Only those in specific categories were lawful. In extremis, you can sue a company for spamming you.
In the USA, which has the opposite approach and seems to take the side of large corporations, you seem to have no legal recourse if a company decides to send you one e-mail message per day for the rest of time. The law is on their side. You must ask very nicely and hope that they will take you off their list.
May 15, 2023
The Civil Service are part of the Globalist UK NWO WEF Establishment which has NO intention of doing anything to further our exit from the clutches of the evil and corrupt EU.
May 15, 2023
[…] The Minister and the blob â John Redwood […]