news Meta seeks government protection from Rees-Mogg’s EU law bonfire | Meta

Facebook and Instagram have asked for government protection from Jacob Rees-Mogg's bonfire of up to 4,000 EU laws on post-Brexit statute books.In a letter to a parliamentary

committee to be published on Friday, the parent group, Meta, asks that laws underpinning social media firms are either “explicitly maintained elsewhere” or “removed from the

scope” of the retained EU law (revocation and reform) bill.If they are not, groups like Facebook would be “less likely to operate in the UK”, wrote Richard Earley, the UK

public policy manager at Meta.The Labor MP Stella Creasy said the bill could force social media companies out of the UK by accident.“Many of us want social media companies held

to account for how their platforms are used. Closing them down by default is not the way to do that but Meta themselves say it's possible because of the government's REUL bill,”

she tweeted.Representatives of private and public interest groups were invited to contribute to a consultation on the bill earlier in November with criticism flooding in from

organizations ranging from the Institute of Directors, trade unions including Unison, the TUC, and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) , an organization dedicated to

consumer health and safety protections.In a letter also published on Friday the CTSI calls on the government to delay the bill warning that there are 250 pieces of “vital

legislation” covering food and product safety, animal health and welfare, fair trading, rogue and predatory trading, and legal metrology – the system for enforcing weights and

measures so consumers get what they pay for.The CTSI says a survey it conducted showed the public were most concerned that food standards would be affected by the bill.It also

found that tackling EU law was last on the list of priorities of voters who were more concerned with the cost of living and NHS. The controversial bill was the brainchild of the

former business secretary Rees-Mogg. The bill is at the committee stage in the Commons. It proposes to delete up to 4,000 laws covering everything from animal testing of cosmetics

to holiday pay and passenger compensation rights, unless these are actively saved by a minister. It has been widely criticized as “reckless” and “anti-democratic” by legal

experts because of the unprecedented powers it gives ministers.The speed with which the government wants to push through the bill, tabled by Rees-Mogg in September, when he was

business minister, has also been criticized.Under a so-called sunset clause, all EU laws that are not amended or updated by 31 December 2023 will automatically be switched