If the UK government was just going to ignore international law, why did we bother leaving the EU at all? Before anyone gets too jumpy, allow me to explain.
If you look at the Brussels laws the UK had to accept during its time as a member state, you’ll find that the government was almost always its own worst enemy. There was a tendency to ‘gold plate’ EU directives, meaning we would take the most extreme interpretation of the rules in question. Most EU directives have annexes that allow member states to play with any restrictions. While many member states shaped the rules around their needs, Britain had a tendency to apply the rules to their limits. In fact, if you look at the translation of EU directives into English common law, you will even occasionally find something I call ‘platinum plating’, where the UK went way beyond the EU directive and created something much, much harsher than the EU dictated.
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