Brexit is approaching fast, and the Great EU Repeal Bill passing through the House of Commons with such ease suggests that there is great potential for legal change post-Brexit.
However, with such division in the Commons over Brexit, it remains unclear what sort of laws the UK will keep, what ones they will change, what ones they will discard, and what all of this means for British and European startups. This lack of clarity has had a detrimental impact on the pound, which continues to fall against the Euro, the US Dollar, the Swiss Franc, and the Japanese Yen well over a year after the UK voted to leave.
Remain voters often argue that the pound’s lapse in value is due to international investors’ stance against the UK leaving the EU. However, that’s not necessarily the case. What international investors and markets want more than anything is certainty — and Brexit currently means uncertainty. Even if one particular business might agree with Brexit in the long term, the short term isn’t going to be great. Indeed, it hasn’t been great.
We Need Lawyers to Clarify Things
Legal experts need to be part of the Brexit discussion much more than politicians, business leaders, and academics do. After all, behind all the political grandstanding and economic guess-making, the actual process of the UK leaving the EU is a legal one.
For example, the Great Repeal Bill passing through the Commons has been hailed as a victory for the Tories. After all, the aim of the bill is to transfer all existing EU laws which are currently in place in the UK into British law. During this process, the Tories will be able to repeal the EU laws they don’t like, amend the ones they quite like, and keep the ones they do like.
It sounds so simple, yet it’s anything but.
To begin with, the Great Repeal Bill is, more than anything else, a formality. As one Cambridge Professor put it, it’s a “tidying up exercise” which needs to be passed so that the UK can legally leave the EU. The fact that the motion passed is a technicality — not something to be celebrated and not something which clarifies anything.
Secondly, the whole notion of “EU law” is also fiendishly complicated. Some laws aren’t really laws at all; they’re more like recommendations. This is why Farage and Cameron were able to quote such wildly different figures during the Brexit debate when asked about the percentage of British laws which are “EU laws”.
To give just one example, EU standard EN 12566 describes the requirements for wastewater treatment plants which are not connected to a mains sewage system. This EU standard is written into British law as BS EN 12566.
That’s one business law which is influenced by the EU, but what percentage of British law does this one law make up? Is it matter of how often the law is applied? Or, is it a matter of the percentage of the British population the law affects? Or do you add up the total number of all laws in the UK — from murder to parking fines — and say this one law is a percentage of that total number?
Finally, there’s the fact that the real “repealing, amending, and keeping” of laws will happen after the Great Repeal Bill passes. The aim of the Great Repeal Bill itself is to allow for a smooth transition from British law as part of the EU to British law outside of the EU. The actual unpicking or defending of EU laws will be carried out in the Commons months and years later.
That last part is the most important thing to bear in mind. With so much focus on the negotiations in Brussels and how badly they’re going, not enough focus has been put on what businesses and the British public can actually do to shape the future of their country.
Businesses Have an Opportunity to Shape the Law
Will London businesses remain open to workers from the EU by keeping old employment laws as David Davis has suggested? Or will it forge new business regulations to become closer to the US as Michel Barnier has suggested?
A lot of this will come down to negotiations in Brussels far away from British businesses and the British public. However, some — or perhaps even a lot — of these decisions will come down to how the MPs in the Commons decide to vote on the issues as and when they come up. MPs have their own opinions, but they are ultimately the servants of their constituencies.
So, if you own a business which benefits from and invests in freedom of movement, let the British public and your local MP know. If you own a business which benefits from and believes in closer ties with the US, let the British public and your local MP know.
Brexit wasn’t just a vote that happened last summer; it’s a process which is still ongoing. There’s still much to play for and it’s still up to British businesses, British politicians, and the British public to decide which laws the UK will keep.
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