Jacob Rees-Mogg has issued a plea to readers of a tabloid newspaper to write to him if they can identify any possible benefits of Brexit.
The Tory MP, who was recently appointed Minister for Brexit Opportunities, published a letter in Thursday’s edition of The Sun asking for suggestions.
Mr Rees-Mogg was appointed as Minister for Brexit Opportunities by Boris Johnson this week and has said he wants to use the post to scrap EU regulations.
But the minister, who has long been a staunch Brexiteer, said he was unable to identify regulations that needed scrapping by himself.
In his “appeal to Sun readers” he quoted right-wing US president Ronald Regan on the benefits of cutting back the state and said:
“To do my job, I need your wisdom … I implore you to write to me with the regulations you want abolished – those which make life harder for business businesses, which shut out competition, or simply increase the cost of operating.”
The government has previously launched reviews of red tape to much fanfare but come back with little to show.
Mr Rees-Mogg has previously argued that the UK could go “a very long way” to rolling back high EU standards and said regulations that were “good enough for India” could be good enough for the UK.
“We could, if we wanted, accept emissions standards from India, America, and Europe. There’d be no contradiction with that,” Mr Rees-Mogg told a parliamentary committee in 2016 a few months after the EU referendum.
“We could say, if it’s good enough in India, it’s good enough for here. There’s nothing to stop that.
“We could take it a very long way. American emission standards are fine – probably in some cases higher.
“I accept that we’re not going to allow dangerous toys to come in from China, we don’t want to see those kind of risks. But there’s a very long way you can go.”
In his new job he is expected to work with the government’s Brexit Opportunities Unit in the Cabinet Office and come up with regulations he wants scrapped and other opportunities he believes could be exploited.
The unit was announced last summer but has yet to produce any high-profile pieces of work.
