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Old 10-09-2017, 20:31   #11
Ignitionnet
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Re: Brexit discussion

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mick View Post
Parliament is involved in brexit process, there is a major repeal bill, 2nd reading tomorrow.
Parliament was involved in the Treaties of Lisbon and Maastricht, and the European Communities Act. Doesn't appear to stop people complaining about loss of parliamentary sovereignty as a result of those actions.

Perhaps this article puts it better than I am.

5 paragraphs from it:

Quote:
However, the Bill also recognises that a straightforward cut-and-paste approach would not work. Some EU law (e.g. that which relates to the single market and the customs union) is unlikely to be of any relevance post-exit, and will need to be repealed. Other EU law will need to be amended to make it fit for purpose following Brexit. Recognising that a great deal of surgery will need to be performed upon the body of EU law before exit day, and given that parliament will simply not have time to perform that surgery itself, the Bill hands the legislative scalpel to ministers, by investing them with delegated powers.

All of this is sensible. Indeed, it is imperative. If such a strategy were not adopted, then Brexit would amount to a legal cliff-edge—and falling over it would entail utter chaos, since it would open up enormous gaps in the statute book. However, the fact that the central aim of the Bill—that is, preserving EU law post-exit—is a necessary one does not place the Bill beyond criticism. And arguments to the contrary—in particular, suggestions in some quarters that objecting to the Bill equates to attempting to block Brexit—are entirely specious. Indeed, the Bill, in its present form, is profoundly problematic in legal and constitutional terms. It is an affront to parliamentary sovereignty. It eviscerates the separation of powers principle. And it risks destabilising the UK’s increasingly fragile territorial constitution.

The notion of “taking back control” was axiomatic to Leave campaigners during the EU referendum. Central to that notion was the idea of parliamentary sovereignty: of making the UK Parliament supreme again, free from interference by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and meddling judges in Luxembourg. Viewed against this background, the Bill is little short of astonishing. Far from cementing the sovereignty of parliament, it would, if enacted in its present form, result in an unprecedented transfer of power away from parliament, by placing extraordinary authority in the hands of the executive government. That, in turn, would fundamentally undermine the separation of powers—which holds, among other things, that it is for parliament to make the law.

That said, like many aspects of the British constitution, the separation of powers is not rigid, and it is far from uncommon for parliament to confer limited law-making powers on the government. But the Withdrawal Bill does not confer carefully demarcated powers: it invests the executive with immense law-making authority. As the House of Lords Constitution Committee puts it in a report published today, “The Bill weaves a tapestry of delegated powers that are breath-taking in terms of both their scope and potency.” Those powers include so-called Henry VIII powers, meaning that they can be used not only to amend EU law but also to amend, or even repeal, parliamentary legislation. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine wider executive powers: ministers are authorised to “make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament.” And it is plain that these powers will not be used merely to make minor, technical amendments to the post-exit statute book. The Bill, for instance, explicitly contemplates that ministers will be able to use their authority both to establish new regulatory regimes and institutions and to invest them with law-making authority. This amounts to a form of Henry VIII power on stilts.

One might expect such extraordinary ministerial powers to be accompanied by a correspondingly extraordinary system of parliamentary oversight and control. But one would be disappointed. A small number of matters will be subject to the so-called affirmative procedure, meaning that parliament will have to approve them—but since parliament cannot amend delegated legislation, the likelihood of outright rejection will be very slim indeed. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the law made by ministers under the Bill will be subject only to annulment by parliament, such that it remains in force unless parliament objects. But the chances of this are vanishingly small: it is nearly 40 years since the House of Commons rejected a statutory instrument. Calls for enhanced scrutiny—made by the Hansard Society and the Lords Constitution Committee, among others—have so far gone entirely unheeded. And although the exercise of these delegated powers is supposedly limited by a “sunset clause”—meaning that they lapse two years after “exit day”—ministers can choose what “exit day” means. They can even say (free from any parliamentary control) that it means different things for different purposes, thus enabling the sunset clauses to be circumvented.


---------- Post added at 19:31 ---------- Previous post was at 19:27 ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking View Post
If it was just half a dozen things to be considered then Parliament would be involved. As it is 12,000 or more, that just isn't remotely practical in the time frame. How many DECADES would it take? The intention is introduce the SAME regulations. The whinges are not about doing that, but about the POSSIBILITY of changing something at the same time. It is NOT meant to be an ongoing "power grab" by the executive, but a one-off interim measure. So many of the regulations are likely to be the sort of things that can be introduced by statutory instrument and not involve Parliament anyway.

EU directives have to be passed at national level. Therefore UK laws already exist and have been passed by UK Parliament.

An area where there are a lot of EU regulations is food safety. If no equivalents are set out in UK law, then there would be a free-for-all on food safety. Is that what people want?
3rd time's a charm: I and anyone sane would entirely agree that delegated powers are required. It's the scope of them and the lack of controls and oversight that are the problem.

A Bill that gives powers so open ended that the executive could, without recourse to Parliament at all, in theory cancel Brexit and take us into the Eurozone and Schengen, or take the UK into EEA/EFTA is not necessary.
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