Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Rees-Mogg Lambasts Critics of EU Laws Bill after Quitting Government

THE GUARDIAN: Former business secretary tells opponents of bill they are fighting a Brexit battle all over again

Jacob Rees-Mogg told MPs the proposals were aimed at ‘restoring parliamentary sovereignty’.Photograph: Michael Mayhew/Allstar

The former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg launched a scathing attack on opponents of legislation he has tabled to sweep away EU law, telling them they are fighting a Brexit battle all over again.

Rees-Mogg quit his role after Rishi Sunak became prime minister, and less than two hours later returned to the backbenches to see a stand-in, the business minister Dean Russell, opening the second reading of the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill.

Rees-Mogg told MPs the proposals were aimed at “restoring parliamentary sovereignty” and helping remove rules and regulations that supposedly put business under pressure.

In an extraordinary backbench spat, he accused a fellow Conservative MP of never accepting the result of Brexit, leading Richard Graham to demand the former minister withdraw the “untrue” statement. » | Lisa O'Carroll, Brexit correspondent | Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Jacob Rees-Mogg is a disgrace! He is also a throwback from an earlier, less-enlightened age – the Victorian Age, maybe.

Brexit was a stupid idea from the very start. Voters were lied to about the benefits of leaving the European Union. There are no benefits. So they were duped; duped by insincere, backward-thinking fossils like JRM.

It is bad enough that we Brits have lost our European citizenship and all the rights that came with citizenship only to return to being a subject of the monarch. What a poor trade off that is!

Those 2,400 European laws to which JRM wishes to make a bonfire of are laws that were put in place for the protection of workers’ rights, consumers’ rights and laws put in place for the protection of the environment. It is a crying shame to take those protections away. Doing so will take us back to a far less enlightened time. Then, Brits will have to fight battles for better working conditions, for example, all over again – from scratch.

May I suggest that if JRM is looking for stuff to burn on a bonfire that he make, or have made, a spitting image of himself, rather like Guy Fawkes, and put that atop the bonfire and let it burn to a cinder! Such a bonfire would be replete with symbolism. But for heaven’s sake, leave those EU laws alone!

Oh, and by the way, ask Nanny to read you a soothing bedtime story tonight when she tucks you in. It sounds to me as if your nerves are frayed. – © Mark Alexander