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Boris Johnson faces separate conservative rebellions over Brexit and Covid-19 rules, as Conservative MPs mobilize to undermine controversial legislation nullifying the EU withdrawal agreement.
The presentation of an amendment by a former minister, Bob Neill, to the internal market bill in an effort to create a parliamentary veto to overturn the divorce deal between the UK and the EU sets up a showdown next week at second reading. of the project in the House of Commons. .
Among other high-level conservative figures who have also spoken out vigorously against the proposed powers of the bill is former party leader Michael Howard, who said it was “a very sad day last week when the secretary of Northern Ireland , Brandon Lewis, admitted that amending the Brexit of the United Kingdom dealing with the EU will violate international law ”.
“I never thought I would hear a British minister, much less a Conservative minister, say that the government was going to invite parliament to act in violation of international law,” Howard told Sky News.
“We have a reputation for probity, for upholding the rule of law, and it is a reputation that is very valuable and must be safeguarded, and I am afraid it was seriously damaged by what was said on Tuesday and by the bill that is currently in place. before parliament “.
Howard’s intervention came after former Conservative Prime Ministers John Major and Theresa May and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont also harshly criticized Johnson’s proposals.
Former immigration minister Damian Green and former minister and attorney general Oliver Heald are among those who support Neill in the Commons.
Although the initiative would need the backing of dozens of MPs in a parliamentary party that has leaned heavily toward a strong pro-Brexit position since the general election, Neill told Times Radio there was support for his amendment in the Tory banks.
“I wouldn’t push this issue if it was just a workhorse of mine,” he said.
The reaction among conservative ranks on Brexit coincides with a separate rebellion over Covid-19 rules, as a former minister claimed that the government’s plans would turn every public space “into the equivalent of going through airport security.”
New regulations limiting meetings in England to no more than six as of Monday and measures to have Covid-19 marshals have raised alarm among some Conservative MPs who want parliament to have the power to review the measures.
Greater parliamentary scrutiny was needed, according to former Conservative Minister Steve Baker, who said it was “time to say that this is not a proper legal environment for the British people” and that there should be a “voluntary system”.
“And it is time that we start living as a free people, without subjecting ourselves to ever-changing legal requirements, which I think no one can fully understand now,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today program.
“It seems to me that the effect of having Covid commissioners will be to turn every public space in Britain into the equivalent of going through airport security where we are harassed and directed … I am not willing to live like this.”
Challenged as to why the Westminster government had not gone the way of decentralized administrations in Scotland and Wales, which have exempted children under the age of 12 and 11 respectively from the limitations of the “rule of six” at meetings, Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi said that in England a measure had been taken to provide “simplicity”.
“It goes against the grain, the DNA of a conservative government, to restrict people’s freedoms, but the evidence suggests that the virus is more virulent in those social interactions, at home, in the pub and outside, so they are introducing reluctantly the rule of six, “he told BBC Radio 4’s Today program.
