MPs should watch Rees-Mogg’s EU law dashboard closely

Jacob Rees-Mogg this week unveiled something that has variously been mocked as either a ‘vanity project’ or the Johnson administration’s equivalent of the Major government’s Cones Hotline. The Cones Hotline was a policy designed to tackle the great social evil of traffic cones loitering without intent – and became emblematic of that government’s tiredness and lack of proper ideas. 

The Brexit Opportunities Minister has come up with a ‘retained EU law dashboard’, which he told MPs yesterday was ‘of both political – and in my view – historic constitutional importance’. The dashboard allows the public to see which out of more than 2,400 pieces of EU legislation have been kept and which have been abolished, and they can count down the number that are disappearing from the statute book. It’s hardly going to be a countdown along the lines of New Year’s Eve or people clicking refresh for a Glastonbury ticket.