The attorney general has said it is ‘time to complete Brexit’ (Aaron Chown/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)Civil servants are thwarting Government attempts to roll back EU legislation, Attorney General Suella Braverman has claimed.
The cabinet minister says she is battling officials who are unable “to conceive of the possibility of life outside of the EU” and hold a “Remain bias”.
Ms Braverman told the Sunday Telegraph: “Some of the biggest battles you face as a minister are, in the nicest possible way, with Whitehall and internally with civil servants, as opposed to your political battles in the chamber.”
She campaigned for Leave alongside Boris Johnson and Michael Gove during the referendum and said the resistance to post-Brexit reforms was “something I didn’t expect”.
The attorney general added: “Don’t take this as an opportunity to bash the civil service. But what I have seen, time and time again, [is] that there is a Remain bias.
“I’ll say it. I have seen resistance to some of the measures that ministers have wanted to bring forward. Because there’s an inability to conceive of the possibility of life outside of the EU.”
The minister said the Government’s Brexit Opportunities Bill will be “absolutely critical” as it will make it easier to ditch the some of the EU rules still applying to Britain.
Ms Braverman added “our new freedom after Brexit to ensure that British rules work for British companies”.
The Government is moving to unilaterally replace the Northern Ireland Protocol which was a key part of the Brexit deal and Ms Braverman has been seeking to secure a legal path to ditch the procedure.
The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill passed through the Commons last week, and is expected to reach the Lords on Monday.,
The bill allow to alter elements of the Northern Ireland Protocol, introducing green lanes to remove uncecessary cost for goods moving within the UK and “normalise governance arrangements so that disputes are resolved by independent arbitration and not by the European Court of Justice”.
Meanwhile, Ms Braverman also said that a “rights culture” in Britain has “spun out of control”.
She also blamed the European Court of Human Rights, after the first controversial deportation flight to Rwanda was stopped following an appeal to the Strasbourg court.
She said: “The culture, the litigiousness around the rights-related culture, has turned on its head a lot of common-sense decisions, which are consistent with British values. The rights-based claims have stymied a lot of our immigration and asylum policy.”
The minister also lashed out at “stretched and strained interpretations” of the UK Human Rights Act by lawyers and judges – particularly Article Eight, the right to a private family life, and Article Three, the prohibition against torture.
