Withdrawal Agreement Bill Status

After winning a Conservative majority in the election, the bill was revised and reintroduced on December 19, and passed second reading the next day. With the revision of the law in December, the provisions made in previous versions for parliamentary scrutiny of the Brexit negotiations have been removed. [10] The 2019 revisions also adapted elements of the Political Declaration and replaced the word “adequate” with “adequate” with respect to labour standards. According to Sam Lowe, a trade researcher at the Centre for European Reform, the change excludes labour standards from dispute resolution mechanisms. [27] In addition, the level playing field mechanism has been moved from the legally binding Withdrawal Agreement to the Political Declaration[24] and the line in the Political Declaration that “the UK will consider aligning itself with EU legislation in relevant areas” has been deleted. [26] According to the WAB law, the Withdrawal Agreement must also be ratified by the European Parliament. The Northern Ireland Protocol, known as the “Irish backstop”, was an annex to the November 2018 draft agreement that outlined provisions to prevent a hard border in Ireland following the United Kingdom`s withdrawal from the European Union. The Protocol contains a provision on a safety net to deal with circumstances in which other satisfactory arrangements have yet to enter into force at the end of the transition period. This project has been replaced by a new protocol which will be described below.

On the EU side, the European Parliament also approved the ratification of the agreement on 29 January 2020[40] and the Council of the European Union approved the conclusion of the agreement by email on 30 January 2020[41]. [42] As a result, the European Union also deposited its instrument of ratification of the Agreement on 30 January 2020, thus concluding the Agreement[43], allowing it to enter into force at 11.m GMT on 31 January 2020 on the date of the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union. On 22 January 2020, the Bill was passed by the House of Lords without further amendments. The next day, she received the royal zusächse. [14] [15] Receipt of the agreement in the House of Commons ranged from cold to hostile and the vote was delayed by more than a month. Prime Minister May won a no-confidence motion against her own party, but the EU refused to accept further changes. Following an unprecedented vote on 4 December 2018, MPs decided that the UK government was flouting Parliament for refusing to give Parliament all the legal advice it had received on the impact of its proposed withdrawal conditions. [29] The key point of the opinion concerned the legal effect of the “backstop” agreement for Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the UK with regard to the EU-UK customs border and its impact on the Good Friday Agreement, which had led to an end to the unrest in Northern Ireland – and in particular whether the UK would be safe, to be able to leave the EU in the practical sense of the term, according to the draft proposals. .