Just finalising my paper for conference in Paris (at the Assemblee Nationale – ooh la la) on the impact of Brexit upon legal protection of citizens against abuse of state power in UK. Here is a short thread with a few of the key points…
1) “taking back control” means giving future governments free reign to abolish minimum standards of protection for environment, workers, consumers; and generally engage in targeted or systematic market / social deregulation. Today's promises not to = meaningless for future
2) emasculation/elimination of EU fundamental rights rules will mean fairly limited loss of substantive protection in fields like data protection. Much more serious is loss of existing EU tools enabling UK courts to grant citizens effective
remedies against unlawful state action
remedies against unlawful state action
3) some important variables still up for grabs. Eg what UK obligations will EU insist on in any future agreement & might EU end up acting as external guarantor of key UK rights? Eg will UK courts take it lying down, or recognise
major power shift & develop new tools of their own?
major power shift & develop new tools of their own?
4) overall: anyone who thinks leaving EU is just about leaving EU really hasn’t been paying attention. Brexit is about creating constitutional space for radical transformation of relationship between citizen and state. And not in especially positive way: trust another PM Johnson?
