David Davis today backtracked on new EU rules during the Brexit transition, saying Britain will not refuse to use them.
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has opted for a “hit and hope” approach on new rules instead, relying on the EU taking a long time to implement them during the likely two-year period after 2019, in the hope that by the time any come in to force the transition will be over.
His approach was immediately dismissed as “really rather weak” by a senior Conservative backbencher, and was also apparently at odds with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who has said the country must not take new regulation after 2019.
The revelation came during a hearing of the Brexit Committee, when Jacob Rees-Mogg asked Mr Davis if the UK would accept new rules laid down by the EU Commission during the transition period.
The Brexit Secretary said: “Ah now, that’s an area of some interest, because the time to take to put a rule into effect, a regulation into effect, in the EU, the average is 22 months.
“The proposal we have for the European Union is that we leave after 21 months, in other words there would be nothing that we didn’t have a say in.
“Now what happened is not right, where it doesn’t work out that way, we’ll see when we come to it.”
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