The EU (withdrawal) bill, which will formally enact Brexit, was published on Thursday and immediately came under fire from opposition politicians.
The bill, informally known as the great repeal bill, will not bring the EU charter of fundamental rights into domestic law on Brexit day, as Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, Kier Starmer, had demanded.
Tim Farron has said the government will face “hell” trying to get the bill through parliament in the autumn, and Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon and Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones released a joint statement saying they could not support the bill as it currently stands.
Below, we share reader reaction to the bill’s publication.
The bill is simplistic and inadequate
Labour must fight this
The Tories have always seen the transfer of powers, negotiated by all shades of government in the last 40 years as an excuse to reinterpret them in the most extreme way possible in order to achieve their dream of a low tax, low wage country with minimal worker and human rights.
If they had achieved their fabled 150 majority this is precisely what they would have done.
Fortunately it didn't materialise and it is now incumbent on Labour and the other opposition parties to fight them tooth and nail to wreck any hope they may have of ruining the lives of most ordinary people in the country for the benefit of their rich corrupt cronies.
It’s a tightrope for Labour
Corbyn and Starmer must play this one carefully. They need to make it crystal clear that they are not opposing the democratic vote of the people to leave the EU, but are acting to protect people's rights from being taken away on the sly by the opportunistic Tories.
It will be a difficult tightrope to walk and no doubt those like Umunna and others with Blair on speed-dial will do their best to knock them off.
What good will this achieve?
Nothing for workers in the Taylor Report; nothing for citizens in the Repeal Bill; nothing for the environment anywhere. And Henry VIIIth clauses -'The Minister will have power to do what s/he likes'. What *exactly* is Brexit going to do for us? Maybe some trade deals (sometime) with countries at least 5x further away than the furthest part of the EU - the US, Canada, Australia - with the increased transport costs.
Come on Brexiteers - what good things are we going to get?
It was never about taking back control
Confirms what many of us were dreading. Brexit was never about taking back control, but taking control away from the little people to remove rights and protections in stealth. The great repeal bill as an abhorrent piece of legislation and Corbyn should oppose it, with any luck a few moderate Tories might vote against this Erdoganesque legislation and kill it.
Why pick unnecessary fights
If May had half a brain she would not pick unnecessary fights over the Charter and the ECJ. These do not cause any day-to-day problems for the UK and are a red rag to the EU (and rightly so). If she cannot find the flexibility to deal with points like this, Brexit is going to be an even bigger train crash than it is already likely to be. Some Tory, some day, is going to have to face down the right-wing lunatics in the party.
For all the Sun's mockery, Neil Kinnock had far more political courage than Cameron and May put together.
The bill will be defeated
This will either be pulled from the bill or the bill will be defeated, I reckon there must be enough Tory MPs who don't want to scrap human rights legislation (and it won't take many) for the government to not be able to pass this. Then there's the fact that the Brexit Secretary David Davis is known for taking a stand in defence of human rights, what an utter hypocrite he must feel right now. That's without considering anything else controversial contained within the bill.
Virtually all EU legislation is multilateral in nature.
To take one example: EU Regulation 1215/2012, which governs the recognition and enforcement of judgments across the EU. The Regulation only works if we remain a 'member state'. If we don't, other member states will not recognise and enforce UK judgments in their own countries, regardless of what we do.
This bill is nonsensical as a piece of law, as will quickly become apparent if it is enacted.
As a lawyer I suppose I shouldn't complain - the chaos and confusion this is going to generate will be good for business - but as a citizen it is depressing to see such a complicated challenge being addressed in such a simplistic and obviously inadequate way.