European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

My Lords, it does the opposite of what my brilliant former pupil the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has said. The inclusion of the charter brings with it uncertainty. It is a Trojan horse because if you carry on applying it, its meaning depends on the evolving case law of the ECJ, which has an objective of bringing further integration and other objectives to do with Europe that are not our objectives. Our judges have said that they want certainty after Brexit, but to include the charter, which is evolving all the time, without our scrutiny will give our judges sleepless nights because they will have to follow the twists and turns in EU law. I come back to the fact that the nub of this is that it will plainly give our judges the right to set aside and invalidate UK law. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, mentioned with approval the Benkharbouche case, where part of our sovereign immunity law was set aside by the Supreme Court on the basis of charter supremacy. That was actually dangerous because if other countries start setting aside immunity law when dealing with our diplomats, we will be in a very difficult situation indeed. I would not assess the Supreme Court by the outcome of what it says; we assess courts by the way they are appointed and the integrity of our judges. The retention of the charter is a recipe for confusion, uncertainty and the setting aside of British law according to ECJ judgments.