United Kingdom Public Servants have been ordered to ‘cleanse’ British law of tens of thousands of references to the European Union.
Sources within the Public Service said Prime Minister, Boris Johnson wanted this done before the next General Election in 2024 in an effort to make it impossible for a future Government to reverse the exit from the EU (Brexit).
Most opinion polls currently give the Opposition Labour Party a small lead over the ruling, pro-Brexit Conservatives.
In a plan being referred to in Whitehall as Operation Bleach, officials have been ordered to pore over regulations and statutory instruments covering the UK’s 40-year relationship with the EU to make it more difficult to undo Brexit.
However, Leader of the Labour Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer is on record as saying he does not think there is a case for re-joining the EU, or for a major renegotiation of the trading arrangements with the EU.
Sir Keir, who was a prominent voice in the campaign for a second referendum and in his leadership election promised to “defend free movement”, said he forced his MPs to back Mr Johnson’s “thin” deal because “the alternative was no deal”.
“Whether we like it or not, that is going to be the treaty that an incoming Labour Government inherits and has to make work,” Sir Keir said
“It is not being straight with the British public to say you come into office in 2024 and operate some other treaty. We have to make that treaty work,” he said.
This is contrary to the opinion of one of his Shadow Ministers, Rosie Duffield, who has claimed that most Labour MPs were “desperate to re-join” the EU and voted for Johnson’s deal “with a heavy heart”.
Senior Public Servants said they were looking at how the country’s legislative framework could be cleansed of references to EU law, and any kind of impact of EU law.
“It is going to be a mammoth task because there are thousands of pieces of legislation — statutory instruments, regulations that sort of thing,” one public servant said.
London, 13 January 2021
