Thousands of EU laws on everything from workers’ rights to the environment are to be scrapped or replaced with UK equivalents in a new plan.
Details of the planned Great Repeal Bill have been published – the day after the UK officially began the two year process of leaving the EU.
Ministers need to effectively “copy and paste” EU laws into UK law to avoid a legal “black hole” when Brexit happens.
It comes as ministers reject claims of a row with the EU over future security.
In a statement to MPs, Brexit Secretary David Davis said the repeal bill would allow businesses to continue operating on the day after UK leaves the EU “knowing the rules have not changed overnight”.
It also meant workers’ rights, environmental protection and consumer rights currently enshrined in EU laws would continue when Britain left, he added.
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The bill will “end the supremacy” of EU law in the UK, “delivering” on the result of last year’s referendum, he added.
“Our laws will then be made in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast and interpreted not by judges in Luxembourg but by judges across the United Kingdom,” he told MPs.
Mr Davis said the repeal bill will not give the European Court of Justice a “future role” in the interpretation of UK laws, and UK courts will not be obliged to consider cases decided by the ECJ after Brexit.
But UK courts will be allowed to refer to ECJ case law “as it exists on the day we leave the EU” and it would have the same status as Supreme Court decisions, which can be overturned by subsequent rulings.
BBC
