Re: Its just not right
"...the contract was awarded to Gemalto because, under EU law, there has to be an open and public procurement process for government contracts. The best 'value for money' / most adequate provider wins.
It may surprise you that the UK is still actually in the EU and therefore must obey its laws."
We should have copied the EC. After the Brexit vote and many months before Article 50 was invoked, the EC quietly introduced a "Brexit clause" into the contracts of their new procurements. These clauses state something to the effect that contractors and their sub-contractors must demonstrate that they would be allowed to operate/supply goods and services within the single market after Brexit. The next part of these clauses states that if a contractor becomes non-compliant, the contract will be terminated and the contractor must reimburse the EC for the costs of a new procurement.
We could simply apply UK versions of the EC's Brexit clauses to scare off EU27 companies who do not have a presence in the UK, just as the EC has done e.g. with their last Galileo procurement.