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The British government announced that it was scrapping its commitment to replace all European Union laws by the end of the year. The policy was deemed controversial despite being championed by hardline supporters of Brexit and led to warnings from businesses and the opposition.
On Wednesday, the British government said it was working on amendments to the legislation that is currently in parliament that proposed scrapping out around 600 of the nearly 4,000 EU laws that remain in the United Kingdom since it left the bloc in 2020 by the end of 2023. The bill, also known as the Retained EU Law bill, aimed to automatically remove any remaining EU laws by the end of the year unless they were explicitly chosen to be retained. The spokesperson for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said back in January that the government will not extend the deadline.
“Today, the government is tabling an amendment…which will replace the current sunset in the Bill with a list of retained EU laws that we intend to revoke under the Bill at the end of 2023,” said British business and trade minister Kemi Badenoch in a statement to parliament. “This provides certainty for business by making it clear which regulations will be removed from our statute book, instead of highlighting only the REUL that would be saved.”
Badenoch said 1,000 EU laws have already been scrapped since the UK left the EU, and with two other bills, an additional 500 laws would also be revoked.
Opposition politicians have long warned that revoking the EU laws would result in a higher workload in departments without benefits and empower ministers to replace laws whenever they choose and clear the way for weaker regulatory protections.
Meanwhile, the British Home Office has been building a case for the government to officially designate the Russian Wagner mercenary group as a “terrorist organization” and said that the announcement of the move would be “imminent” in the coming weeks, according to The Times on Tuesday.
The news outlet said that should the designation be adopted, it would become a criminal offense in the UK to be associated with the Wagner group.
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