Kemi Badenoch criticised by ERG chief and other Tories over ‘massive climbdown’ on retained EU law – UK politics live

Good morning. Every Conservative prime minister since John Major has been criticised by Eurosceptics/Brexiters in the party who are angry about feeling let down (except Liz Truss, who was not there long enough to initiate the betrayal narrative), and today it is happening to Rishi Sunak over the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill, which is being gutted of the provisions that would have abolished around 4,000 retained EU laws by the end of this year, unless ministers took an active decision to retain or reform them.

Here is Ben Quinn’s overnight story.

Related: Workers’ rights put at risk by plan to scrap EU working hours rules, says TUC

On the Today programme, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who drafted the original law as Brexit opportunities minister, and who then introduced it to parliament as business secretary, said this amounted to a broken promise by Sunak, who posted a video on Twitter last summer, when he was running for the Tory leadership, highlighting his pledge to “shred” EU regulations.

Rees-Mogg said this was a serious breach of faith. He said:

Politicians have not delivered. And this comes back to the prime minister’s promise in his video during his leadership campaign when he said he would do this.

Bear in mind, at that time, he had already given write-round consent to the retained EU law bill. I had briefed him on it. He knew that it wasn’t easy. He knew that it was going to be an effort to get it done, but a slightly longer deadline at that point. He accepted the deadline of 2023. And then he has broken his word. And this is very serious in my view.

Asked why this was so serious, Rees-Mogg said:

Politicians need to stick to what they say they will do …

I think it is an important issue for the party that when Rishi Sunak resigned [as chancellor] he said in his resignation letter to Boris Johnson that he believed the public are ready to hear the truth: ‘Our people know that if something is too good to be true, then it is not true.’

He then said something that people like me wanted to hear and has failed to deliver it. And I’m afraid it is no good being holier than thou if you then end up behaving like a Borgia.

The Borgias were the Spanish/Italian dynasty notorious for their corruption and immorality. Like the Borgias, the Sunak family are wealthy, but in other respects the skinny, teetotal and fastidious Sunak makes an unlikely Borgia.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister and deputy PM, takes questions in the Commons.

After 10.30am: Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons, makes a statement to MPs on next week’s business.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12pm: The Bank of England announces its latest interest rate decision. Graeme Wearden is covering this on his business live blog.

12pm: Humza Yousaf takes first minister’s questions at Holyrood.

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