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.

OK, I've now tracked down the actual Bill, which was only published today.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2017-2019/0005/18005.pdf

On a quick reading, and to my non-legal eyes, it looks like Spinflight is completely wrong to say Statutory Instruments will only cover limited areas.

To my understanding, it looks as if this Bill allows SIs to be created in any area which involves EU laws. (And surely this is one of the key purposes of the Bill in the first place?)

However there are also some restrictions on the ability to create SIs. For example, Schedule 7 on p39 specifies that certain categories of SI must go before Parliament and devolved authorities, and certain categories needn't.

I'm not experienced enough to know how well this answers the concerns about adequate Parliamentary scrutiny that were raised before the Bill was published. I'd guess the devil will be in the detail, and you'll need to be reasonably experienced to decode it.

I hope the Bill does provide thorough Parliamentary scrutiny. Anything else would be a diminution of democracy. (And the irony of that given the rhetoric leading up to this... )

(I should correct my post at Thu 13-Jul-17 12:53:52 to

"If I understand aright, there are serious issues about the Statutory Instruments the bill introduces might introduce," as it was about discussion before today's publication of the actual Bill, not a review of the Bill.)

I hope the Bill does provide thorough Parliamentary scrutiny. Anything else would be a diminution of democracy. (And the irony of that given the rhetoric leading up to this... )

Yes, we've got leavers complaining about that democracy they claim to hold dear - just like they did over the Gina Miller court case.

Exactly Lucy,

It's a deliberately unreasonable demand, coupled with EU troll manifested spin such as May refuses perfectly reasonable requests / wants to eat newborn EU migrants babies / is putting our foreign based citizens at risk..

The EU wants the ecj to remain a part of our judiciary. It's actually a tribunal on EU rules rather than a court, and is often confused with the court of human rights.

To the best of my knowledge the ecj has never found in our favour, every time (72 times rings a bell) we've disputed something they've found against us.

Think I've got a graphic somewhere...

"To my understanding, it looks as if this Bill allows SIs to be created in any area which involves EU laws. (And surely this is one of the key purposes of the Bill in the first place?)"

Bravo Perking!

I am impressed, an actual debate on proposed legislation before Parliament has even debated it!

Saying that which paragraph(s) are you looking at specifically?

Spinflight

So to sum up;

• We have Labour trying to add more 'rights' and laws to the current EU rights we need to cut and paste into our laws via this Repeal Bill meant to legally allow a seamless Brexit from the EU, and go through at a later date.

• We have EU Barnier not trusting the UK with EU citizens living here rights, despite making a speech yesterday saying we are not showing enough trust with the EU.

Is that about right?

If so, no politicking there then for their own agendas.

oh yes, and Corbyn and Sturgeon chatting to the EU in Brussels. A - why are the EU talking to them B - why are they talking to the EU?

Probably better you check the whole Bill, spinflight.

There might be a para I've missed that says, "BTW, all the foregoing only applies to 'limited areas which would previously have been decided by majority voting in a Brussels meeting room.'"

Help me out here..

Which paragraphs caused you concern?

But you could particularly look at para 7 on page 5.

I'm highlighting a few bits of that para for space reasons (my bolds), but suggest people do click and read it all.

Main powers in connection with withdrawal
7 Dealing with deficiencies arising from withdrawal

(1) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations make such provision as the Minister considers appropriate to prevent, remedy or mitigate—
(a) any failure of retained EU law to operate effectively, or
(b) any other deficiency in retained EU law,
arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU.

(2) Deficiencies in retained EU law include (but are not limited to) where the Minister considers that retained EU law—
...
(4) Regulations under this section may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament.
...
(6) But regulations under this section may not—
(a) impose or increase taxation,
(b) make retrospective provision,
(c) create a relevant criminal offence,
(d) be made to implement the withdrawal agreement,
(e) amend, repeal or revoke the Human Rights Act 1998 or any subordinate legislation made under it, or
(f) amend or repeal the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (unless the regulations are made by virtue of paragraph 13(b) of Schedule 7 to this Act or are 15 amending or repealing paragraph 38 of Schedule 3 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 or any provision of that Act which modifies another enactment).
(7) No regulations may be made under this section after the end of the period of two years beginning with exit day.
(8) The reference in subsection (1) to a failure or other deficiency arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU includes a reference to any failure or other deficiency arising from that withdrawal taken together with the operation of any provision, or the interaction between any provisions, made by or under this Act.

To my untutored eye, the early subsections appear to have very broad application, while the subsections (6) and (8) attempt to rein the powers in a bit. But someone experienced in legislation might well have something different to say.

x-post.

I'm not looking at paragraphs that cause me concern.

You claimed Statutory Instruments apply to "limited areas which would previously have been decided by majority voting in a Brussels meeting room."

I said doesn't look like it in this Bill. And have now both linked to the Bill and highlighted language where your claim doesn't appear true.

But seriously, you should read the whole Bill. As I say, there might be something I've missed.

I've just realised you said above, "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."

So you really do want to read the whole Bill - it's not doing what you appear to have thought it would. (It only came out today, so fair enough.)

Executive power mostly resides with Secretaries of State already. This includes some of the most draconian powers on the statute books, such as the anti-terror legislation that allows the Secretary of State (not usually specified which, to allow for machinery of government changes) to impose curfews on individuals, prohibit them from associating with named people or going to named institutions or areas.

Statutory Instruments in themselves are not bad things, and it's incorrect to say that there is no Parliamentary scrutiny of them. They are either subject to the negative or affirmative resolution process, which is short of full Parliamentary scrutiny because it falls to a committee rather than both Houses to consider the proposals. If negative, the draft SI is presented to Parliament, and provided that no-one objects to it it becomes law a certain number of days later. If affirmative, a specially convened committee, reflecting the make up of the House of Commons, considers it and votes on it in the same way as in the main chamber. The Lords tend to deal with all their business in the main chamber.

I'm not saying that Labour are wrong to oppose the Repeal Bill (I haven't looked into the detail of what Starmer is claiming against the draft bill), but there is nothing necessarily inherently wrong in what has been proposed as the legal mechanism for implementing Brexit.

Many of the Brexiters in the Tory party want to remove a lot of the beneficial EU legislation from the statute books. If we import everything from the EU into the UK and then require parliamentary scrutiny and debate to change these protections, the Tories will be limited in how much damage they can do. Hence the nature of the Repeal Bill, which will allow them to quickly dump a lot of the best bits from the EU without having to go to all the effort of having votes in parliament.

I said before the Referendum that the Brexit vote was a vote for the political right. If the Repeal Bill goes through in its current form, I will have been proved correct.

Thanks Oleanna, I thought there'd be someone with more knowledge along shortly. It is MN, after all.

Perking - looking at the first bit of the extract you have highlighted, my reading of it is that where an unexpected bump arises which makes it impracticable to operate the law in a simple "cut out EU and replace with UK" way, regulations can be made to provide a remedy. This is really important, as otherwise when the inevitable wrinkle and unintended consequence arises there would be a lengthy delay to put it right whilst time was found on the Parliamentary calendar to take forward further primary legislation to correct it.

I can't think of a really good example at the moment, but it would be something like according to EU Law 1.2.3(b)(d) all gizmos must be sent to Office In Brussels for inspection before being made available for sale to the public. If this isn't specifically spotted, the Repeal Bill will still require British manufacturers to send all gizmos to the Office In Brussels for inspection according to (now) UK law. If the intention is that the inspection process is now moved to Woking, say, then the relevant minister could make a regulation amending the law to delete Brussels and replace with Woking. Bit of a pain, and a couple of months delay, but a relatively painless way to correct an obvious flaw and error.

The key is what scrutiny is proposed to oversee these regulations. I think that the government is proposing to rely on the usual Parliamentary processes for this, rather than creating a new role (commissioner type post, for example). It is inevitable that the volume of regulations will mean that many will go through without any scrutiny at all

There is, of course, the potential for serious mischief making - to remove the limits on maximum working hours, for example. But I honestly don't see what the alternative option is: Parliament cannot sit and determine every single bit of EU legislation anew, everyone on MN would be long dead before they finished that process

Yes, I can entirely see the original purpose of the Bill - and am sure it will often be used exactly as you describe.

It's the unintended - yet partially predictable - consequences that I saw people concerned about before the actual wording was published. I don't know enough to know whether those concerns have been ameliorated.

That's an interesting suggestion to have a commissioner. How would you see that working?

The usual way that commissioners (in this sort of context) work is that they are able to receive complaints and order public bodies to take action if they determine that a mistake has happened. For example, the Data Protection Commissioner.

So if someone felt that a minister had acted outwith the powers of the Repeal Bill by bringing forward a regulation that didn't just correct a mistake or unforeseen wrinkle, but went further and removed a protection or changed the law in some other meaningful way, an individual or organisation could refer the case to the commissioner for their determination.

But, importantly, for this model to work the commissioner a) needs proper powers; b) needs proper resourcing; and c) needs to be the right person.

Yes, such a commissioner being independent and trusted would be a sine qua non.

ArcturianMegaDonkey

You say “Many of the Brexiters in the Tory party want to remove a lot of the beneficial EU legislation from the statute books. If we import everything from the EU into the UK and then require parliamentary scrutiny and debate to change these protections, the Tories will be limited in how much damage they can do.”

What rubbish, what ‘beneficial EU legislation’ is at threat?

As the threat I see is a Labour Parliamentary Party with its leadership elected, ran and, given policies to paste in their general election manifesto by the militant trade unions – trying to ADD EU employment legislation we never adopted – maybe that was one of todays 'jobs and conditions'' Corbyn promises during todays EU Negotiator Barnier meeting/suck up.

Yeah the meeting between Corbyn, the strange fish and that Welsh bloke is disgraceful.

The EU insist we aren't allowed to talk to other nations about trade, but they happily go behind the government's back so that the shrill opposition can get their orders from Brussels.

Why oh why would Corbyn be so stupid? He can see how it looks and he doesn't care.

Watching the BBC you'd think the GRB was in danger of not being passed.

Seems though that it's going straight to the second reading, which reading between the lines means that labour have at least supported it's principle and the Lords have accepted that the Salisbury convention applies.

Which means that some form of it will pass, but they're bickering and grand standing over the wording and how to resolve any problems which arise.

Second reading starts tomorrow in hearing, though there isn't normally hoc business on a Friday. One even wonders whether the summer recess will be cancelled.

It might well be as childish as labour hoping they can make trouble all through the silly season, get a tiny amendment passed and declare that they've saved the UK from calamity.

Here in Brussels the eurocrats are cock a hoop. They consider Barnier meeting with Corbyn and Co as a real coup.

Its not just Labour concerned about this though is it? If it was, the Conservatives would be no problem in passing it.