Much atttention has been paid to the fact that the Internal Market Bill puts the UK in breach of international law. It also however, raises extremely serious questions of domestic law with far reaching implications outside of this specific legislative context. #internalmarketsbill

Clauses 42, 43 and 45(2) allow Ministers to adopt regulations in respect of controls on NI-GB imports & state aid, allowing Ministers to disapply any domestic law or remedy. The far reaching nature of these enabling clauses is extraordinary. Let us consider some hypotheticals:

State aid contingent on support for a particular political party; the exclusion of the bribery act; the imposition of a nationality requirement in relation to imports; the imposition of a discriminatory charge; the exclusion of FOI, individual tax benefits; secret guidance etc.

All in all, this is a charter for corruption. And don't assume that this cannot happen. Orban has used law to create a network of business support. Businesses know that in order to obtain licences etc, it is necessary to provide support to the party.

Finally, if this Bill goes through with clauses 42-45 then we can expect similar clauses in future bills. They will of course be litigated and no doubt the common law will to some extent come to the rescue. But we cannot wait for this. Parliament must act now to stop this Bill.

Here is but one example: https://www.ft.com/content/a0a593f8-d878-3d28-bc01-f6a11aef353a

Crises provide opportunities for corruption: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Business/A_HRC_44_43_AdvanceEditedVersion.pdf