At the end of January in 2020 the United Kingdom (UK) officially left the European Union (EU). As shocking as it may have been around the world, it seems as if this was something that many British were looking forward to and saw coming. There are many benefits to being an EU member, but those benefits do not outweigh the issues that were happening between the EU and the UK, at least they didn’t outweigh them according to the ones who voted to leave. After leaving the EU, the UK had many issues that they needed to take care of. One of these many issues is that of legal order and that of law. The UK had been a member of the EU since the early 1970s, meaning that a very large number of UK laws was based on, or at least influenced by, EU law. The exact number is unknown, as it would take way too long to ever figure it out. However, there have been quotes and estimates that state somewhere between 10 and 70% of UK law was influenced by laws that the EU had in place. As can be taken away from this, EU law has been rather important to the UK and those that call the UK home. However, now that the UK has left the EU, what do they do now? Do they bother going and changing all these laws? Do they look at them, change them some, and call it good? Or do they let things continue to be the way they are? Well, the answer is somewhere in the middle of all those questions. Eventually the UK government will have to look at many of these laws and make changes that they deem necessary. However, that will take a long time, especially with everything that is currently going on in the world. Because of the time that it takes, the UK seems to be letting everything go the way it always has been. According to some research, there are only a handful of certain important areas that EU law has directly influenced. These are agriculture, fisheries, external trade, and the environment. These all make perfect sense as the EU will have opinions of experts that know much, much more about these respective fields and issues than most. The UK has had some freedom in these areas, but most laws have been influenced by the EU. A couple of important areas that the EU has not influenced that much is that of welfare and security, education, criminal law, family law, and the NHS. Yet again, this makes perfect sense. In these areas, countries and states should have the most control and influence over these laws. Each country is different. For instance, let’s look at education. Each country is going to have their own goals and limitations. One country may have very high expectations and a great education system, meanwhile another might have the opposite of both ends. What can be taken from this is that although a lot of UK law has been influenced by the EU, not all of it has been. There will be a need to go through some of these laws in the future when there is time, but it might not take as long as most of us think.
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