All EU rules should face a “sunset clause” according to former BCC chair John Longworth
All European legislation should face a “sunset clause” according to the Brexiteer former director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce.
Speaking at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, John Longworth said Theresa May should put an expiry date on the entirety of the EU’s rules as part of her Great Repeal Bill.
May has promised to include the legislation in the next Queen’s Speech, and Longworth said today that the clause would prevent any efforts to slow deregulation.
“All European legislation should be removed on a certain date unless we decide to keep it,” Longworth said, calling the effort “a proper addressing of the deregulation issue”.
The former BCC boss added that the UK should begin work immediately to target rules for repeal on “Brexit day plus one”.
And Longworth also said that predictions of an economic collapse in the aftermath of a Brexit vote had been proved wrong, adding that institutions that provided a negative outlook should publicly recant to help shore up business confidence.
“It is incumbent on the institutions who said that things would be awful to recast their position,” Longworth said.
“The way out for these institutions is to say that things have changed and we now can take a different view on what the future holds.”
Longworth was speaking on a panel alongside Brexiteer MEP Dan Hannan who said that 10 financial institutions had improved their forecasts from the UK since the June referendum and accused the Remain campaign of bullying and hectoring voters.
“We were told that if we voted to leave there would be a collapse in the stock exchange. But we weren’t told it would be the Italian stock exchange, and that the UK would have the best performing one in Europe,” Hannan said.