Rishi Sunak has u-turned on his leadership campaign promise to repeal thousands of retained EU laws at a stroke. A written statement – always the preferred vehicle for awkward government news – from Kemi Badenoch this afternoon confirmed that the government will in fact only scrap around 600 laws in the Retained EU Law Bill by the end of this year. It has infuriated members of the European Research Group of Brexiteer Tory MPs. Former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has also had a pop at the Prime Minister for an ‘admission of administrative failure, an inability of Whitehall to do the necessary work and an incapability of ministers to push this through their own departments’.
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Sunak made the pledge when he was trying to catch up with Liz Truss in the first Tory leadership contest.
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