Today in Brexitland, April 10, 2023

On the Retained EU Law bill, the limits of Brexit and Rishi Sunak being a bit like David Cameron

In one of the most predictable events ever, the Tory government’s attempts to vandalise the British law books in the name of Brexit has hit the rocks. The House of Lords, one of those institutions the Tories used to venerate but now hate, all because it wouldn’t wholeheartedly go along with their misguided Brexit revolution, has made it clear it intends to try and defend UK law with everything they have. This includes enough Tory peers to make safe passage of the bill through the Upper House pretty much impossible (there are a lot of Tories who still care about British law, it seems). Therefore, the government are parking it for now, perhaps until after the next general election comes and goes.

This makes me wonder, as most items of particularly crazed Brexit thinking tend to, what the government is thinking here? Is the plan to put wiping out scores of British laws that happen to have been inspired by an EU Directive in their next manifesto so they can get round the Lords post-election? Perhaps. If so, this would be one of those classic 21st century Tory conundrums, similar in many ways to the one David Cameron faced in 2015. It was in his best interests by miles to not take too many seats off the Lib Dems. The idea here being, he’d still be short of a majority, need to do Coalition 2.0 and then he could avoid holding the stupid EU referendum he’d promised everyone that was always going to be a disaster for him. If he’d gone down this road, he could have kept the Conservative party relatively Cameroonian - and probably on its way to a fifth straight election victory now.