Boris Johnson to try to regain control with
Brexit bill and policy blitz
PM hopes to move on from parties scandal with plans to
make it easier to scrap EU laws and tackle cost of living crisis
Boris Johnson hopes a bill easing removal of EU laws
from the statute book will also deal with criticism that Brexit’s benefits have
been sparse.
Jessica
Elgot Chief political correspondent
@jessicaelgot
Mon 31 Jan
2022 00.01 GMT
Boris
Johnson will attempt to seize back control of the government agenda this week
with a policy blitz, a Brexit bill and flying visit to Ukraine, as Westminster
remains in the grip of paralysis over the Sue Gray and police inquiries into No
10 parties.
Amid
frustration in No 10 at the uncertainty surrounding the report on rule-breaking
parties in Downing Street, sources said Johnson was determined to deflect
public outrage with a schedule of high-profile announcements and photo
opportunities that he also hopes will show MPs he remains focused.
On Monday,
Johnson is announcing plans for legislation to make it easier to rip up EU
regulations and protections, after criticism from Conservative MPs that the
government has not taken sufficient advantage of Brexit. He is also expected to
visit Ukraine with the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, early this week, and the levelling-up
white paper is scheduled for publication on Wednesday.
Whitehall
sources said they also expected developments this week on help for families
struggling with the cost of energy bills, after the prime minister and the
chancellor definitively ruled out cancelling the national insurance rise and
cutting VAT on energy bills.
Johnson
could receive the long-awaited report on lockdown breaches in No 10 as soon as
Monday, after which he is expected to give an immediate statement to MPs.
Scotland
Yard’s special inquiries team will this week scour evidence of
lockdown-breaking by Johnson’s aides sent to them by the Gray inquiry.
Detectives received the information from the Cabinet Office on Friday and
police chiefs have been stung by fierce and widespread criticism after pressing
for Gray’s report to give only “minimal reference” to the gatherings under
investigation.
Those are
believed to be the most clear-cut breaches of the lockdown rules, and probably
the most politically dangerous for Johnson. The police request caused
widespread fury in Westminster and the report’s contents are expected to be
significantly weakened.
The Met was
unable to say on Sunday when it will start to write to those identified by Gray
as having potentially breached lockdown rules. They will be asked if they have
a reasonable excuse and then police will decide whether they should face a
fine. Cabinet Office sources said on Sunday night that they were still in
discussion with the Met.
Opposition
parties have been discussing what can be done to force the publication of a
full version of the report, which is now only likely after a police inquiry has
been completed.
Johnson,
who spent the weekend at his Chequers residence, is said to have been struck by
MPs’ criticism that the government has been unable to communicate the benefits
of Brexit.
On Sunday
night he unveiled plans for a new law – called the “Brexit freedoms” bill –
intended to make it easier to amend or remove some of the bridging law kept on
the statute book after Brexit. No 10 said that, as it stands, much of that
regulation would require primary legislation to remove it, and the new bill
could sidestep that process.
Critics
said Johnson must make clear whether he intends to target employment
protections, and pointed out that businesses and government have already faced
billions of pounds of costs as a result of additional red tape due to Brexit
itself.
Sarah
Olney, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for business, said: “This odd
announcement raises questions about what kind of environmental rules, data
protections and workers rights this government may look to water down. This
bizarre press release leaves ministers with serious questions to answer.”
A Labour
source said: “The key question for the government is which of the proposed
changes in regulation depend on the passage of this bill, and if the answer is
none, what other changes are they planning that do? Until they can explain all
that, we have to ask what the point of this bill is.”
Downing
Street said it would release a public catalogue of all retained EU laws to
determine if they are beneficial to the UK.
In a
statement announcing the new bill, two years after Britain’s exit from the
bloc, Johnson said: “Getting Brexit done two years ago today was a truly
historic moment and the start of an exciting new chapter for our country. The
plans we have set out today will further unleash the benefits of Brexit and
ensure that businesses can spend more of their money investing, innovating and
creating jobs.
“Our new
Brexit freedoms bill will end the special status of EU law in our legal
framework and ensure that we can more easily amend or remove outdated EU law in
future.”
The
government will also publish a riposte to critics who claim little advantage of
Brexit has been taken, with a document titled The Benefits of Brexit: How the
UK is Taking Advantage of Leaving the EU.
It will
claim that reforms have led to a more agile digital and AI sector and a less
burdensome data rights regime compared with the EU’s GDPR. It will also claim
that there have been benefits in changing clinical trials, strengthening
environmental protections and establishing a domestic subsidy regime.
With hopes
rising in No 10 that Johnson can swerve a no confidence vote, the prime
minister is also understood to have told staff he hopes to save his chief of
staff, Dan Rosenfield, or move him to another role.
Gray’s
report will criticise the culture in No 10 and make a series of recommendations
on changes to the organisation, according to those who have given evidence, but
Rosenfield has not been implicated publicly in any egregious breaches.
No 10 is
braced for further damaging revelations in the press once Gray’s slimmed-down
report is published. One of Johnson’s fiercest critics, Dominic Cummings, told
NYMag on Sunday that it was his “duty to get rid” of Johnson as prime minister,
describing it as “sort of like fixing the drains”.
Cummings,
who was Johnson’s chief adviser, called his former boss a “complete fuckwit”
whose only preoccupations were “Big Ben’s bongs” and “looking at maps” to
“order the building of things” in his honour.
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