Labour is axing the European Scrutiny Committee and Brexiteers are smelling a rat - Analysis by Christopher Hope
Starmer is seeking closer ties to the EU and Brexiteers are smelling a rat - analysis by Christopher Hope
PA
The make-up of Parliamentary committees rarely troubles the headline writers - but the axing by the Labour Government of the European Scrutiny Committee is a worry.
The Committee has kept watch on how the Government applies European Union laws in the UK, regularly grilling Government ministers who often were less than keen to appear.
Until the election, it was seen as a vehicle for Tory Brexiteers to vent frustrations about Brexit, despite mainly focusing on the dual EU/UK sovereignty over Northern Ireland since the Windsor Framework was agreed.
No doubt Labour ministers will use this focus on Northern Ireland as a reason for discontinuing the committee's work.
Sir Bill Cash
PA
But Brexiteers are smelling a rat, not least that it comes just as Sir Keir Starmer seeks to forge new and closer links with the EU. Surely - they argue - now is a time to increase scrutiny of links with the EU?
Sir Bill Cash - the former Tory MP who sat on the committee from 1984 to June this year - is appalled, describing it as a "retrograde step" and a "travesty of the democratic process. "It is not turning the page, it is dumping the book," he told me.
Cash might be missing the point here, as the Eurosceptic makeup of the new Parliament has completely changed, not least in the Conservative party. That in turn could have meant the committee's members became a cheerleader for a closer union by Remain-supporting Labour MPs, if it were kept going.
There is no doubt that the Brexit voice in Parliament has been severely weakened by Labour's rout of the Conservatives at the General Election.
A recent meeting of the previously all-powerful steering committee of the European Research Group had just three members: Suella Braverman, Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Mark Francois.
Other Brexiteers Dame Priti Patel and Andrew Rosindell are expected to be part of the nascent Brexiteer group in the new Tory party. But who else is there?
There has arguably never been a more important time for a specially set up committee to scrutinise UK links with Brussels. Axing it will just raise suspicions about Labour's plans for Brexit.
It will also raise questions for Nigel Farage. Will the leader of the Reform UK party speak out today in the House of Commons to protest? It will be a test of whether Farage is planning to take his role as an MP seriously.