Domesticating retained EU law: practical necessity or ideological project? Charles Pigott considers the mammoth task ahead
- One key aim of the EU Retained Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is to excise the supremacy of EU law from our EU derived law from 2024 onwards.
- The complexity of the Bill is testament to how difficult that task is going to be.
In what proved to be a cruel month for the short-lived Truss administration, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was introduced by Jacob Rees-Mogg on 22 September, one day before the ill-fated mini budget was delivered by Kwasi Kwarteng. Rees-Mogg resigned from the cabinet upon the appointment of Rishi Sunak as prime minister, but the Bill went on to receive its second reading in the House of Commons on 25 October.
Whatever its final form, the Bill as introduced to the House of Commons provides a vivid illustration of how entwined our domestic law continues to be with Europe, and the size of the task if the government continues to make it a political
