The SNP has told the UK government to shelve controversial plans to push through the Retained EU Law Bill ahead of its second reading next week.
The Bill, which has also been criticised by organisations such as the TUC and RSPB, was blasted by the Scottish Government over its implications on food and environmental standards as well as workers rights, stripping back regulations that have protected people in Scotland for over 50 years.
In a letter to Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the SNP’s Cabinet Office spokesperson, Brendan O’Hara MP urged the cabinet secretary to ‘end the uncertainty felt by millions’ by scrapping the bill entirely.
The Argyll and Bute MP, who led a debate on opposition to the Bill earlier this week, reiterated the threat the legislation poses to the devolution settlement, accusing the UK government of an ‘all-out attack on Scotland’s democratic Parliament’.
Commenting, Brendan O’Hara MP said:
“The UK no longer has a functioning government and yet, in the midst of this chaos, the Tories want to plunge the country into even more uncertainty by pressing ahead with this shambolic bill that will threaten food standards and workers rights.
“Not content with having destroyed their own government the Tories now seem desperate to undermine Scotland’s with this Bill just the latest in the long-running saga of Brexit fallout harming the people of Scotland.
“The UK government’s botched Brexit cannot be allowed to wreak even more havoc on Scotland, especially not as this latest episode of Westminster chaos promises even more economic uncertainty and disruption.
“If the bill is passed it will constitute an all-out attack on Scotland’s democratic Parliament, one that without the full powers of independence we are powerless to stop.
“Yet again the Tories have continued to demonstrate exactly why Scotland must be an independent country.
“Our nation must have the right to choose our own future in a referendum voted for by the people.”
