Don’t expect a rapid passage for this bewildering array of Brexit Bills

It’s been a week for blistering track records at Royal Ascot and the event’s number one fan, The Queen, looked like she was in a hurry to break one of her own today, clearly desperate to get her speech and the trifling business of opening parliament out of the way as soon as possible so she could get back to the Royal box.

If Her Majesty could be brought in to handle negotiations with the DUP and with EU leaders in Brussels, with the clock ticking before a big race, we might be looking at a somewhat quicker end to all the rippling uncertainty of what is to come politically and economically.

Trouble ahead

Sadly, The Queen’s speech, while dominated by Brexit, which accounted for eight of the 27 Bills included, has done little to tackle any of the confusion over what will happen next. If anything, it merely underlines the sheer scale of the trouble ahead.

While the legislative framework has at least now been laid out, on virtually every Bill proposed there are huge question marks over interpretation and potential for division, which could make the currently talks with the Unionists look like child’s play.

We are to have a Repeal Bill, designed to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act and convert EU law into UK law. As if that wasn’t a legislative nightmare in itself, Labour, riding on a new-found wave of popularity, has promised to rip that to shreds. And the list of laws involved is truly frightening.

A customs Bill will give what the speech described as a “new independent” customs policy. But is that the final death knell for our membership of the single market and the customs union? Many business leaders, as well as Labour, SNP and the Lib Dems, still think not and want, at the very least, transitional arrangements, which would involve retained membership of that union.

A trade Bill will seek to allow free-trade deals with countries around the world (a great idea that one), but all at the same time as waving goodbye to the biggest free-trade organisation in the world.

And an immigration Bill will end the free movement of EU workers, seen as potential disaster by many companies in the food & drink industry, while somehow still allowing the UK to “attract the brightest and the best”.

These are just a few of the measures promised, with other debates on the future of fisheries and agriculture thrown in.

Little wonder there is widespread disbelief within the food & drink industry that 22 months is enough time for a government to get the legislation passed, given it is so weak it has yet to prove it can even operate with a majority, and that only possible if it can come up with enough money to satisfy the DUP.

Minefields 

Never mind the fact that Theresa May has jettisoned virtually all of the controversial domestic policies in the Conservative manifesto. There are enough minefields in these Brexit Bills to keep the Commons locked in disagreement for 22 years, let alone months.

If I was a betting man, I’d suggest that timeframe surely will have to be reassessed and a whole host of compromise measures and halfway house agreements drawn up, if we are not to go hurtling for the dreaded cliff edge at the same speed of one of those Ascot flyers.