by WorldTribune Staff, October 2, 2016
UK Prime Minister Theresa May and her “three Brexiteers” – Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and David Davis – have taken the first step toward implementing Britain’s exit from the European Union.
May and the Brexiteers announced the “Great Repeal Bill” at the Oct. 2 Tory conference. The bill will nullify the 1972 European Communities Act, “which is the current vehicle by which EU laws are implemented in the UK,” the Sunday Express reported.
May told the Sunday Times: “This marks the first stage in the UK becoming a sovereign and independent country once again. It will return power and authority to the elected institutions of our country. It means that the authority of EU law in Britain will end.”
As part of the process, the prime minister, will transfer all current EU laws and regulations onto British parliament’s statute books.
“It’s very simple. At the moment we leave, Britain must be back in control. And that means EU law must cease to apply,” said Davis, who May named as Britain’s Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
“That is what people voted for – power and authority residing once again with the sovereign institutions of our own country.”
Tory parliament member Jacob Rees-Mogg told Sky News the repeal bill is “the sensible way to proceed and it recognizes the reality of our position. European regulations come into domestic law and they will need to remain in law until they are repealed and replaced.
“Not all of them are stupid, some of them are perfectly sensible and we will want to keep them. It would be wrong to have a vacuum in law and so to put it into one bill and then take many years to work out the ones you want to repeal, the ones you want to reform, the ones you actually want to keep is the intelligence way to proceed.”
May is also confirmed that she will not call for new elections before 2020, arguing that doing so would create instability.
“Some Tories have been urging the new PM to call a snap general election, pointing to opinion polls which show she would score a huge majority and crush Labour under the hapless leadership of Jeremy Corbyn,” the Sunday Express said.