It may be coincidental that the government’s latest Brexit negotiations paper – on cooperation in the fields of security, law enforcement and criminal justice – should have issued within a week of the latest terrorist attack at Parson’s Green underground station in London. But the two events are in fact closely connected. If the man suspected of the Parson’s Green outrage had made it across the Channel, as he was seemingly trying to, we would have needed every bit of the EU’s criminal justice network of cooperation to get him back speedily and bring him to justice where his crime was committed.
The government is aiming to give treaty force after Brexit to all the internal security and justice obligations we currently have as members and for the EU to do likewise. This must surely be the right way to proceed if we are to stand the best possible chance of combatting successfully a large range of international criminal activity – from terrorism to drugs, from cybercrime to child pornography, from human trafficking to illegal migration. Without that legally consolidated network of cooperation our law enforcement agencies’ crime fighting capabilities would be reduced just when they need to be strengthened. At worst, we would risk becoming a haven for criminals from other EU member states.
So has the government, for once, hit the nail on the head? Not quite so fast. So long as our government goes on arguing that no deal is better than a bad deal we are seriously at risk in this law enforcement area. This, among other things, would have severe negative implications for security on the island of Ireland, whether divided or not by a new set of border controls. Because there is no Plan B available in this field as there is there is for trade, with WTO rules applying if there is no deal. Here the result would be a real cliff edge and a real, instant loss of capacity to cope with international crime.
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Moreover the road ahead, both in Westminster and Brussels, bristles with complexities. At Westminster hard line Brexiters have, over the years, campaigned to repatriate all this EU criminal justice legislation. In 2014 they rejected the judgement of Theresa May, then home secretary, that it was in our national interest to remain in the system and defied a three line whip to vote against it. Now the government’s preferred course will involve continuing payments to the EU budget and a continuing dispute settlement role for the European Court of Justice – hardly sweet music to those same rebels’ ears.
In Brussels there will be a thicket of legal institutional and budgetary complexities to be overcome, including how to ensure that the EU and the UK keep in step with legislative and operational developments as they emerge. It should be possible to do that since the mutual interest is so evident; but it will not be easy.
The issues at stake over justice and law enforcement are fundamentally important ones. It is a lot more fun to watch the foreign secretary tying himself in knots in the tangled web he wove when he lied to the people over the amount of money we send to Brussels each week. But the damaging consequences of getting law enforcement wrong would be with us a lot longer.
Edited by Hugo Dixon
Again and again plans are for damage limitation following brexit, not improvement. How can we be closing the door on the EU? Self harm at best although insanity is the best description.