Brexit will dominate political and parliamentary life for years to come. The weight of EU exit legislation announced in the Queen’s Speech could, as someone once said, stun a team of oxen in its tracks.
Not too long ago, a cabinet minister involved in these things told me that the ‘Great Repeal Bill’ alone could consume most of a standard parliamentary session. There are now seven more bills, covering such trifles as Britain’s immigration system, trade policy, customs arrangements, farms and fisheries. Parliamentarians will be wading through Brexit legislation for years to come, and every line of every bill could have real impact on British companies and people. Remember that when you hear analysts saying this was a thin or lightweight speech.
On the domestic front, meanwhile, the Speech confirms that Theresa May has had to abandon several of the more famous policies from the Conservative manifesto – grammar schools and means-testing the winter fuel payment are gone.
The PM has signalled that other measures will be watered down, perhaps when it becomes clear just how much, if any, authority she has over Parliament and her own party: the energy price cap and social care funding are both now subject to unspecified consultations at some point in the future. (However, don’t think the price cap is wholly dead: it seems clear that the Government will still seek to extend existing price protections for ‘vulnerable’ people, but it isn’t yet clear whether it will do that by legislating or by giving the job to OFGEM, the regulator.)
Broadly, Mrs May is confirming what the world knows: she is in a weak position, too weak to do the things she hoped her election would give her a mandate for.
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