The biggest Brexit day yet
Theresa May called Thursday “the biggest Brexit day yet,” and there was certainly much to chew over. First up was the publishing of the legislation that will remove Britain from the European Union and port 12,000 of the bloc’s laws onto the U.K. statute books. It immediately ran into criticism from Scotland and Wales, whose leaders called the 66-page bill a “naked power grab” for failing to give them sufficient powers. Scotland will still get a separate vote on the bill. Opposition parties also prepared to amend the bill, which among other things will give the government power to tweak laws without parliamentary approval and take Britain out of the EU’s human rights charter. The Labour Party’s finance spokesman, John McDonnell, called on May to introduce a “different type of bill.” Politicians are braced for an autumn of squabbling. Brexit Secretary David Davis said in a BBC interview that the changes “are hardly massive,” and purely “technical changes to make the law wor