‘I’m not an arsonist’: UK’s Kemi Badenoch hits back at Brexiteers over EU ‘bonfire’ delay

LONDON — Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch has been drawn into a heated public row with Tory Eurosceptics over the U.K.’s efforts to scrap EU laws carried over post-Brexit.

Senior Conservative MP David Jones accused the Tory rising star on Tuesday morning of lacking “courtesy” and being “disrespectful” toward the House of Commons by slowing government efforts to scrap EU laws after MPs had already passed a key bill.

But, speaking at a session of the Commons European scrutiny committee, Badenoch hit back. She accused Jones, deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Tory MPs, of leaking details of private meetings to British newspapers. And she rejected the characterization of the bill as a “bonfire” of EU laws.

“It’s public knowledge that we had private meetings, because when I thought we were having private and confidential meetings I was reading the content in the Daily Telegraph,” Badenoch told Jones.

The U.K. government’s Retained EU Law Bill originally had a strict 2023 sunset clause, automatically deleting every EU law carried over after Brexit by the end of this year if the law had not been reviewed by officials and ministers. It would have required the review of around 4,000 pieces of legislation by December 31.

Badenoch decided to alter the bill in the face of complaints from businesses that the exercise was creating serious regulatory uncertainty.

Instead, around 600 pieces of EU law will now be reviewed by the U.K. government this year in efforts which Badenoch says will be more focussed and business-friendly.

Conservative MP Richard Drax also took aim at Badenoch, saying her approach had created “distrust” among some Tories who fear “this bonfire won’t take place.”

“It is not the bonfire of regulations — we are not arsonists,” Badenoch shot back. “I’m certainly not an arsonist. I’m a Conservative.

“My view is that what we want to do is get rid of laws we don’t want — there’s a process for that.” 

Committee chairman Bill Cash — a longstanding Tory eurosceptic — said Badenoch’s new approach had created “legal uncertainty” and meant the U.K. would now have “two separate statute books interpreted by the courts.”