Breaking Free from EU Law? The Politics of the UK’s EU Withdrawal Bill

‘Taking back control’ from the European Union was at the heart of the 2016 EU referendum campaign, and has since been at the forefront of UK government policy. A central tenet of this quest for control is to ‘break free’ from EU law: to leave the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the EU and to regain regulatory independence. Paradoxically, the first proposed step to breaking free from EU law – the planned EU Withdrawal Bill – aims to make sure the EU acquis communautaire fully applies on Brexit day. This vast ‘copy-pasting’ exercise provides a key opportunity to investigate what happens to EU law once it is stripped out of its EU nature. As the UK prepares for exiting the European Union, discussions around the EU Withdrawal Bill also offer the most in-depth public discussions of the roles and purpose of EU law in the UK (from EU principles, to the integrity of the Single Market) since the UK joined in 1973. This paper analyses debates and amendments to the EUWB around three particular issues: regulatory gaps (parts of the acquis either not or not fully brought into UK law), governance gaps (whether and how the governance functions (reporting, enforcement, evaluation, etc.) currently fulfilled by European institutions would be replaced) and ‘power grabs’ – both by the UK Government vis-à-vis Parliament and by the central UK administration vis-à-vis the three devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In doing so it contributes to research on the domestic impacts and politics of EU law – notably research on differentiated integration with the EU in the UK, and potential for differentiated disintegration in the wake of the Brexit vote.