Thread by @AdamWagner1

Eight hours before the new 'rule of six' comes into force, affecting everyone in England. Still no publication of the new criminal law yet. Anyone?

This is late even by the standards we have come to expect

Here are the places you might expect to find it, if you are playing 'hunt the new criminal law which is going to impact on tens of millions of people's lives in 8 hours time' along with me

legislation.gov.uk/secondary?titl…

statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk

Here is my best guess at what the rules are going to look like - but the devil as always will be in the detail and we don't have it yet. How are people meant to plan the lives around this?

I have also been told that some journalists have been briefed about the detail but are *under embargo* until tomorrow!!!

Difficult to emphasise how ridiculous that is

It's 5:15pm. New laws in force tomorrow. Everyone's (in England) everyday lives affected profoundly. Are they just... not going to publish anything this time?

Perfectly possible they are still arguing over the detail, by the way

Which is what happens when you allow (Parliament! This is on you) the Executive to pass criminal laws without prior approval. No need for prior warning or debate.

Less than six hours to go

I have just realised that waiting for Covid regulations Twitter is an (even more) boring version of waiting for football transfers Twitter

“Announce Regulations!”

I don’t think they have ever been this late. There must be a row going on

Still nothing. Weird. And bad

So this is where we are at 23:08 on the night before the new 'rule of 6' apparently comes into force. The government website says tomorrow. Huge curtailments on everyone in England's private and family lives. And yet, extraondinarily, the laws themselves have not been published!

This is no small thing. Since 26 March, over 50 sets of lockdown laws have been brought in by a flick of Matt Hancock's pen, with no prior parliamentary input or vote, using a procedure which was designed for emergencies but appears to now be a permanent state of affairs...

... Generally, laws have appeared a day or two before they come into force. That in itself is highly problematic, because people need to know and understand the law of the land and this gives them almost no time to do so. But this is the most extreme delay yet.

It is a basic principle of the common law and human rights law that people cannot be punished for laws they cannot access or hope to understand. What will the police do tomorrow? Have the laws come into force without being published? It's a real mess