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In a vote last week, on 28th March, the Senedd formally refused consent for the UK Government’s Retained EU Law Bill.  

The Senedd has aligned with the Scottish Parliament in voting to withhold consent for the Retained EU Law Bill. This means the Bill does not have the support of the Welsh or Scottish governments. 

The vote in the Senedd was a Legislative Consent Motion. This is a vote which is held if the UK government wishes to legislate on a subject matter which is a devolved issue.  

In a statement from the Senedd, Mick Antoniw, the Welsh Government’s Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution, said the proposed legislation threatens food standards, environmental protections, workers’ rights, and business and consumer certainty. 

“Both the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament have both been clear,” said Antoniw, “that this is an unacceptable encroachment on the democratically established devolution settlement.” 

As it stands, the Retained EU Law Bill impacts over nearly 4,000 pieces of legislation. If passed as it is, the Bill would abolish all EU laws and standards still applicable in the UK at the end of 2023. This is known as the ‘sunset clause’, and we don’t know if the government has the time to decide on the future of each law by then. The Bill is currently at report stage in the House of Lords as part of the scrutiny process. 

“We welcome the vote in the Senedd to drop the Retained EU Law Bill,” said Campaign Manager, Richard Kilpatrick, “at the last General Election, no one voted to give ministers this level of power over the laws and standards that we all take for granted. This wasn’t in the Conservative Party’s manifesto.  

“The Senedd voted to drop this disastrous Bill, as did Holyrood, because it recognises that this Brexit government is putting so much at risk with this bonfire bill. Brexit was not a vote to slash our working conditions, environmental regulations or our quality of life. 

“We call on people to join tens of thousands of others, as well as two devolved governments and an alliance of sitting MPs and members of the House of Lords, by signing our petition for the UK government to drop this Bill.” 

European Movement UK demands the government drop the Retained EU Law Bill and instead focus on protecting our rights. Sign the petition to Save our Standards here. 

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European Movement UK hosted a Market Access Campaign Webinar with former Business Secretary and Lib Dem Leader, Sir Vince Cable, business owner Ian Clark (Clarkshaws) and EM activists James Ryder (EM Wandsworth & Merton) and Luciana Ponzetta (Swindon for Europe) for the launch of our Market Access campaign. 

Members joined us for a Q&A session about the impact that Brexit is having on the economy and on small businesses across the UK. 

The webinar was an opportunity to empower our wider network of activist groups to engage with local businesses on the impact of Brexit, produce reports and begin a dialogue with important local and regional stakeholders. 

Vince opened the event by speaking about the importance of engaging with business to identify how UK businesses are operating under the new Brexit reality. 

“The business sector has not yet seen the most of it,” Cable continued, “as import restrictions are still to come.”  

“This is why, to shift the argument,” said Cable, “we need concrete evidence of what’s happening on the ground. Such as this survey, which I’m impressed with.” 

Following a Q&A with Cable, James Ryder from our EM group in Wandsworth and Merton presented the findings from their business survey of their local area. They used their Building Bridges funding to conduct a survey of 120 businesses, create a report from the data and launch their findings at an event attended by their MP. 

We then heard from Ian Clark of Clarkshaws, a brewing company in Brixton, London, about the difficulties that his small business has faced with Brexit. 

The session was then wrapped-up by Luciana Ponzetta, who spoke about how, off the success of EM Wandsworth & Merton’s survey, Swindon for Europe conducted their own survey of local businesses. 

“We had engagement from people who voted Remain and Leave,” said Luciana, “and this is vital.” 

Why are we running a Market Access campaign? 

Businesses have borne the brunt of the fallout from the Withdrawal Agreement. According to the British Chambers of Commerce, 77% of businesses have said that the withdrawal agreement has not helped them to grow, 56% have struggled with new rules around trading goods and 45% with trading services.  

Despite the clear evidence that Brexit is hurting our small and medium enterprises, their voices are seldom heard in the debates over the Retained EU Law Bill, the Northern Ireland Protocol and our future relationship with the EU. 

Rishi Sunak recently said that Northern Ireland was the most exciting place in the world to invest because it has access to the EU and UK Single Markets, but there was a time, not so long ago, when that applied to the whole UK. 

We know that Brexit isn’t working, and our businesses are suffering as a result. As a UK-wide, grassroots movement, European Movement UK has an important role to play in giving small and medium-sized businesses a voice in the growing debate over Brexit’s effects.  

What’s next for the Market Access campaign? 

We have produced a national level questionnaire for businesses, and this is launching in April 2023. 

This questionnaire will ask businesses what they think about the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and how Brexit has affected their day-to-day business operations.  

Our target is to gather at least 1000 responses from businesses. With this data, we can feedback the findings to our wider partners and stakeholders, such as at party conferences. 

After this, we will organise a campaign day for the beginning of summer. 

You can watch the webinar in full here. 

The Building Bridges fund is open to all European Movement UK’s affiliated groups. If you want to learn how your group can take advantage of our Building Bridges fund, contact [email protected]. 

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