Keir Starmer's stance on the Reform Act

[lucydogz]

In the news today, Keir Starmer says that Labour will hold up the Reform Act, which (I think) means that much EU legislation would be rubber stamped and passed into our legislation.
As you can probably gather, I'm happy to be corrected on this, but isn't this really bad.
Don't remainers want to keep EU legislation and this is a way of doing that?
Isn't the Act a good way of disposing of the small stuff so that negotiators can concentrate on the major issues?
Isn't it inappropriate for a party that voted for Article 50 to try and fuck up the brexit process this way (which it will do)?
They way I see it, Starmer is trying to build up a political reputation for himself. He knows that Corbyn and McDonnell's indifference to the Referendum is a blot on the Labour Party. He doesn't care that this will damage negotiations.
I'm aware that I might not be right and I'm sure others will disagree with me, but that's the feeling I have.

It's called holding the government to account, it's what an opposition should do. The Tories are fucking up Brexit all by themselves.

You are on the money Lucy.

The repeal bill doesn't, or shouldn't, seek to change current EU law, merely to incorporate it en masse into UK law.

By voting against it labour would be voting against all of the worker's rights, environmental protections, maternity rights, equality and regulations which have been so hard fought over the last forty years.

If it doesn't pass, either in Parliament or in the devolved regions such as Scotland, then you can pretty much turn the clock back forty years.

Once on the statute books I'm sure there are some areas that might be amended, though this is not the job of the bill, it is merely to move the legislation without changing it.

Opposing it is utterly indefensible.

When the UK needs to have a united position in EU negations, as I write in Brussels at this moment HM Opposition Corbyn for Labour, the Labour 1st Minister for Wales Carwyn Jones, and the SNP 1st Minister for Wales Nicola Sturgeon, on THEIR request are MEETING with Chief EU Negotiator Mr Barnier, why?

Decided by a UK wide Referendum to leave the EU, there’s nothing like united UK front, and this pro EU ‘delegation’ confirms that there isn’t anything LIKE a united UK front – so thank god, they were not party to government strategic meetings – otherwise they’d be spilling their guts by now.

Labour say that they won’t support a Great Repeal Bill basically trying to cut and paste EU law into UK law, as they say the government could change ‘stuff’ afterwards – so when this is a huge undertaking that due to opposition politicking, could bog down the government in Westminster for several months – Labour, the Lib Dems and other EU ‘5th Columnists’ say they want to change stuff BEFORE they support the bill.

Thanks for that. I'm watching the negotiations through my fingers at the moment, and think I'll go back to not watching at all. There seem to be no lengths that the Labour Party will not go to to fuck up the country in the aim of self-gratification.

Corbyn thinks he can bring down the government over this and force a general election. Naked selfish interest basically and quite a gamble with our rights.

He clearly hasn't read the fixed term parliament act.

Trickier is what happens if the snp votes it down in the Scottish Parliament. Which they will.

Answers on the back of an envelope on that one. What would it mean?

All Labour want is to bring down the government.

They have no real Brexit stance, all they want is to be awkward.

Cameron was a selfish partisan bugger for calling the bastarding thing, Corbyn is just the same selfish partisan buggger for using it to suit his interests.

Fucking grow up, all of them.

The Tories would like to get rid of those pesky workers rights and other annoyances such as building regs
I can't think anyone would agree unless you are in a very privileged positive and don't care about the general population

OK, so this is where I must be getting something wrong.
Why would adopting EU legislation en masse do that?

If I understand aright, there are serious issues about the Statutory Instruments the bill introduces.

I think there's more detail on the Westminsterenders threads, but from the Beeb article:

Repeal bill: All you need to know
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39266723

"Not all of this can be done through the Repeal Bill, so the government plans to create powers to 'correct the statute book where necessary' - without full Parliamentary scrutiny...
"The government plans to enact its "corrections" to the statute book using what are known as Henry VIII powers, after the Statute of Proclamations 1539 which gave him the power to legislate by proclamation.
"Given that this will not involve the usual Parliamentary scrutiny process, opposition parties have protested, with Labour claiming ministers were being handed "sweeping powers" to make hasty, ill thought-out legislation. Ministers have attempted to reassure critics by saying such measures will be time limited and not used to make policy changes. In total, the government estimates that 800 to 1,000 measures called statutory instruments will be required to make sure the bill functions properly."

but this is legislation that has been passed by the EU already? So, all that legislation that Remainers say we'll lose, because of Brexit, will be adopted wholesale?
Still don't get it.

So basically, if I've understood, May is saying, "Give the government sweeping executive powers - and trust me."

Well not only does not everyone trust May, but she might not be the government for the lifetime of these powers.

The powers the bill provides would be wielded by whoever wins the next election - which might be rather sooner than she hopes.

I'm absolutely not an expert, and haven't been following the Westminsterenders threads closely enough, but IIUC, it's not the current legislation that's the problem, it's the changes that the UK government of the day could make to the legislation afterwards by Statutory Instrument - ie without Parliament getting to vote on the changes.

ChardonnaysPrettySister

Re your “Cameron was a selfish partisan bugger for calling the bastarding thing”

Please correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Labour promise a peoples vote before they signed was what was to be called The Lisbon Treaty?

Labour went and signed the Lisbon Treaty in December 2007 without the peoples say, and with what may be Harry Hindsight, I would suggest that as there were less ‘effects’ on the UK population/services in 2007, than before Cameron was able to honour his long promise to have a Referendum – if Labour had carried out their promise – I would suggest that the result would have been a firm REMAIN.

“Brown belatedly signs EU (Lisbon) treaty”

The rest, as they say, is now history.

I can see there might be objections to potential changes to future legislation perking. But it seems that Starmer is objecting to what is being adopted and what is not, which seems to be a different thing.
Also, surely there should be some recognition that it's a reasonable way of cutting the Gordian Knot of what to do with all this legislation, as we don't have time to go through it item by item?

totally agree with you thea.
Also, Cameron had no choice in calling the Referendum. What he did have a choice on was how he phrased the question.

I haven't followed anything about Starmer so can't comment on him.

In terms of the Statutory Instruments, I can see why they seem administratively appealing, especially to someone who's more into Doing than into Democracy.

But regardless of where the idea comes from, the effect will be the same. The Statutory Instruments hand over huge legislative powers from Parliament to the executive. And if I understand correctly, the powers go to individuals (eg Secretary of State for Health), not even to parties.

Some people might feel comfortable with that when it's May, but re-run the scenario with other people. Would you be happy with Corbyn having those powers? Arlene Foster? John McDonnell? Nigel Farage?

It's genuinely difficult to deal with all the Brexit administration. But from what I understand, the current Repeal Bill is proposing leaping out of the frying pan into the fire.

I'll stand corrected on details of that if someone more knowledgeable comes along.

all good stuff perking, thank you. I'd be interested if someone could tell me where Keir Starmer fits into this, appart from oppurtunism.

Lots of EU legislation currently uses statutory instruments Perking.

Bringing tens of thousands of these into a smaller number seems sensible.

Many of the EU's concerns can be boiled down to the inability for one parliament to bind the next, though this is part of our constitution and won't be changed to appease them.

Interestingly Starmer says that labour will vote the repeal bill down on the second reading, which is odd. The second is for amendments and such once Parliament has accepted the principal of the Bill in the first.

spinflight can you expand on Many of the EU's concerns can be boiled down to the inability for one parliament to bind the next, though this is part of our constitution and won't be changed to appease them. for me? By 'EU concern', do you mean procedural concerns for Brexit?

Replicating EU structures isn't necessarily that easy..

There is lots of dusty committees that have degrees of power. Their fishing committee for instance would meet to collectively decide to steal all our fish.

Hence replicating this can't realistically ask parliament to decide everything and the only UK analogue is the minister for defra.

So yes Michael Gove might have Henry VIii like powers, but only on limited areas which would previously have been decided by majority voting in a Brussels meeting room.

I don't personally regard this as a reasonable issue on which to balance our rights over a cliff.

As a pp suggested they need to grow up.

thanks spin
I love MN - it's a real education

Certainly Lucy,

Currently, as insisted upon by the EU, only the Irish border question, the divorce bill and the rights of EU citizens and UK citizens are being negotiated.

The Irish border question cannot be resolved until we know more about the trade relations later in the negotiations. You can't plan what invisible customs will look like till you know what are needed.

The value the EU is demanding is neither here nor there.

Which leaves the EU citizens and the EU's supposed 'concern' that we could merely revoke their rights at a later date. Sort of a, "What if farage got into power and decided they could be hunted with dogs on his country estate" nonsense.

It's bollocks on stilts basically, though ably supported by many of the weirder members of Parliament...

Which leaves the EU citizens and the EU's supposed 'concern' that we could merely revoke their rights at a later date. Sort of a, "What if farage got into power and decided they could be hunted with dogs on his country estate" nonsense
So how would the EU like to see that resolved spin? Surely it's not possible?

This is their justification for insisting that the ecj has to oversee their rights. Not just their current rights but enhanced rights that we don't currently enjoy.

We aren't going to change our constitution to appease silly fears.

If we were insisting that our Spanish retirees had to be subject to UK and not Spanish law because Spain might replace bullfighting with Costa del Crime manhunts people might think us a little unreasonable what?