Brexit: What next for Team GB?

By Rebecca McCarthy

With the Brexit dust settling the country seems divided; with some predicting armageddon and others world dominance for Britain. Of course, at the moment, no one really seems to know what is going on and the two most dominant political parties appear to be reshuffling faster than a casino croupier! Regardless of the long term plan, for the time being everything’s a bit uncertain.

Amidst the confusion, Chancellor George Osborne has announced that the “emergency budget” he proposed pre-referendum will not take place until we have a new prime minister in the Autumn. The proposals for the budget included increases in income tax and inheritance tax, so not really much to complain about with this delay.

The Finance Bill 2016 is still likely to go ahead and be enacted this summer, however there are still ambiguities (for example regarding the residence nil-rate band) and it seems likely that without decisive governmental leadership, this too may be delayed.

There are a number of EU directives which were in the pipeline and are now unlikely ever to be enacted into UK law, and other regulations and laws which have already been transposed into UK law will need to be expressly repealed.

All in all, there is a lot of work to be done in our legal system before we can claim to be fully ‘Brexited’ and it’s not a simple case of ‘repeal everything EU” despite what we may have read on social media.

While the fog clears, the only sensible advice we seem to be able to offer is “wait and see” …

A version of this article was published by STEP and can be read here.

Rebecca McCarthy is a paralegal in the Private Client team at Barker Gotelee.

Solicitors in Suffolk – for more information on our range of legal services, please call the team on 01473 611211 or email [email protected]