Future Timeline

06-04-2023 11:43

A cross-party group of peers including senior Conservatives, is said to be lining up to “sabotage” the government’s retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill with an amendment that would see the sunset clause in the controversial legislation pushed back five years. It would effectively neuter the bill.

The upper house also wants parliament and the devolved administrations to have more say in which laws are to be amended or scrapped.

An amendment, tabled at the end of March in the name of the former Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton, Anne Mcintosh (now Baroness Mcintosh of Pickering) would extend the deadline for ministers and civil servants to review 4,000 pieces of retained EU law which remain on the UK’s statute book, from the end of this year to 11.59pm on 31 December 2028.

It would essentially undermine the whole purpose of the bill and inevitably transfer responsibility for amending or repealing the most significant EU laws to the next government, which increasingly looks like a Labour administration led by Keir Starmer.

The prime minister pledged during his campaign for the leadership in August last year to “shred” 2,400 EU laws in his first 100 days in office, even releasing a promotional video of him with a shredder.

Wed 19 Apr 2023 16.20 BST

The boss of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, has launched a fresh attack on Brexit, describing it as “unbelievably messy” and predicting the UK would end up signing a Norway-style deal with the EU in the next 10 to 15 years under which it would pay into the bloc’s budget.

The outspoken chief executive of the Irish budget airline said over the next three to five years, the UK’s departure from the EU would be “net negative on the UK economy, no question about it”.

O’Leary said the UK’s longer term relationship with its closest trading partner depended “on what the British establishment or future UK governments do”. However, he said he believed that the UK would “in the next 10 to 15 years” strike a “trade deal with Europe, similar to Norway or Switzerland”.

“I think they will pay into a European budget, I think they will have no choice,” O’Leary said during a panel discussion at Bloomberg’s New Economy Gateway event in Ireland. “The fundamental strength of the single market, is something that is too attractive for the UK economy to be excluded from.”

The Ryanair boss said a lot would depend on “how Europe responds to Brexit”, adding: “Brexit should come as a real warning to the European Union. You need to focus on the things which improve people’s lives, which is improving the single market.”

Wed 10 May 2023 19.20 BST

Trades unions have warned that workers’ rights are in peril after the government unveiled new plans to scrap EU rules on working hours as part of its drive to cut “unnecessary red tape”.

The announcement comes as the proposed scrapping of up to 4,000 EU-era regulations by the end of the year was ditched after a private meeting with Brexiter MPs.

Ministers unveiled a package of regulatory reform on Wednesday in the retained EU law bill, which they said will help business cut costs.

The package included reducing “time-consuming and disproportionate reporting requirements” for specific elements of the working time regulations, the part of UK law which implements key EU labour regulations and rights.

But Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Council (TUC), seized on the government’s stated aims, calling them “a gift to rogue employers looking to exploit workers and put them through long, gruelling shifts without enough rest”.