Are we a United Kingdom?

Dear Facts4EU.Org and CIBUK.Org readers,

I would like to draw your attention to a matter of huge concern. This highlights how part of the UK has not only been denied Brexit but it has also been brought into far greater subjection to the EU than was the case when we were members.

This has divided the UK as a consequence. It pertains to the whole United Kingdom for some purposes. The Government has afforded us an opportunity to speak out against this but only gave six weeks for this public consultation by DEFRA, with inadequate publicity.

This involves the imposition of “Not for EU” labels on the whole UK. I invite readers to make their views known to Government, even though the deadline has just passed, and below I provide details of how this can be done easily.

All of this comes with draft legislation

The consultation comes with draft legislation (see below) which mentions EU Regulation 2023/1231 SIX TIMES and indeed the draft legislation makes no sense without it.

This is bizarre because it is an EU regulation governing a nation state that is not in the EU. Critically, it also pertains to the whole UK not just NI, because it governs what can move from one part of the UK to another.

Indeed, EU Regulation 2023/1231 is far more humiliating than anything ever imposed on the UK when we were in the EU because at least we were part of the governance structures making the legislation to which we were subject.

It involves partially disenfranchising 1.9 million UK citizens and dividing our country with an international SPS border.

Neither the US nor other countries would never accept this

I feel we must ask how it would be if the EU passed a regulation governing the movement of goods from one part of the USA to another part, or from one part of Japan to another part, if it disrespected the territorial integrity of any state in this way, even if they were members of the EU?

We need our government to start standing up for this country.

Baroness Hoey suggests a form of response to this egregious legislation

I suggest that the central consultation response needs to be:

The Windsor Framework (WF) is a treaty. In reality there are laws about what constitutes a valid treaty and one of the most basic is that it respects the territorial integrity of states which means that it does not engage in in any process by which it claims or seeks to assert a right to make laws for part or the whole of another state.

Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary in Article 1 of the WF, the practical operational effect of many of its other articles has been to disrespect the territorial integrity of the UK, and claiming the right to make some laws. Their impact is felt directly in EU Regulation 2023/1231. The UK should therefore declare the treaty void (which would also cause EU Regulation 2023/1231 to have no teeth in relation to the UK) and not subject any part of the UK to “Not for EU” labels or any other part of the treaty.

Problems with this ‘consultation’

Frustratingly there does not seem to be an explicit consultation question asking people whether they support the change BUT the consultation involves the Government setting out the draft legislation, but it then asks no explicit questions about it. It would plainly be unreasonable to go to the length of putting draft legislation out as part of a consultation and then not affording people the opportunity to respond to it.

To this end the best way to frame a submission would be as a response to the draft regulations which affords the opportunity to identify the central difficulty, namely EU Regulation 2023/1231 and then to go to the central ask.

I suggest using this consultation email address to communicate submissions rather than the online proforma and that the submission is introduced along these lines.

'I see that the Government has put out draft legislation on introducing “Not for EU” labelling as part of its consultation but could not see any opportunity on the online consultation to respond to the wording of the draft regulations so I am responding to the consultation, as it relates to the draft regulations, by email.'

‘Given that is a constitutional issue I respectfully ask that my views are included as a matter of natural justice, as the consultation was not promoted widely and six weeks is an unreasonably short period for a matter this serious.’

The one thing I would stress is please be mindful that if the Government does not declare the treaty void and carries on, it will be very important for NI that “Not for EU” labels are imposed on the whole UK. If they are not we will be effectively cut off from many of the products of our own country because it won't be worth the while of many businesses producing products with “Not for EU” labels just for NI.

Thank you so much for your help in this matter.

Standing up for Brexit and the United Kingdom,

- Baroness Kate Hoey of Lylehill and Rathlin, writing for Facts4EU.Org and CIBUK.Org, Mon 18 Mar 2024