Did P&O use an EU loophole?

Brexit, as Boris reminded us many times during the referendum campaign, would give Britain the power to make its own laws, unencumbered by constant directives from the European Commission. But it will take a long while to disentangle UK laws from the influence of the EU, as the government may be about to discover in its attempt to punish P&O ferries for sacking 800 workers and replacing them with agency staff.

At last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Johnson declared that P&O had contravened section 194 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992, which required employers to give the government 45 days’ notice of any intention to make more than 100 workers redundant. The penalty was specified as an unlimited fine. But has an EU directive incorporated into the legislation in 2018 disempowered the government from doing this? That appears to be the view of Andrew Burns QC who this week gave evidence on the P&O situation to a parliamentary committee.