Read more: Former MI6 Chief—Brexit would not damage UK security
The last few weeks have seen a bewildering array of experts on security line up on both sides of the Brexit argument. The Remain side have turned to John Sawers, a former director of MI6, and Lord Evans, a former director of MI5. The Leave side have sought support from Richard Dearlove, another former director of MI6, David Hayden, a former director of the CIA, and Ronald Noble, a former head of Interpol.
How is an interested observer to make sense of all this? And should security even play a part in the Brexit debate? After all, the decision of the European Council that set out the terms of the Prime Minister’s renegotiation said that security is a matter for the member states.
Unfortunately, as is so often the case with the European Union, these words cannot be taken at face value. They are completely at odds with the attitude of the European Court of Justice, which has become a direct threat to our security. So it is essential that these issues become widely known as the referendum approaches.
Among many such decisions, the Court has ruled against the UK refusing entry or deporting EU citizens who are suspected of involvement in terrorism. It is also impeding Home Secretary Theresa May from deporting Abu Hamza’s daughter-in-law, who was convicted of attempting to smuggle a SIM card into prison for him.
And, in some ways most seriously of all, it decided that the UK’s opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which Tony Blair assured us that he had achieved and which David Cameron promised to negotiate, had no effect and did not exist.
One consequence of this is that part of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, which May said was “crucial to fighting crime, protecting children and combating terrorism,” was struck down by the Divisional Court as being inconsistent with the Charter. The surveillance regime provided by the Act has now been referred by the Court of Appeal to the European Court of Justice.
The debate on Brexit is sometimes conducted on the basis that we have a choice between the status quo and the risk of leaving. The security field demonstrates the fallacy of this contention. The EU is not a static organisation. It is constantly looking to expand its remit. In March, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, called for the establishment of a security union.
So the current intrusion of the EU into our security arrangements is just the beginning. If we remain, it is bound to get worse and worse.
Some of the advocates of Remain have suggested that intelligence-sharing with EU members will suffer if we leave. But our closest intelligence-sharing relationship is with the other countries in the Five Eyes alliance: the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We are not members of any “union” with them and our relationship does not depend on any institutional structure. So there is no reason why we should not continue to co-operate with other EU member states if we leave. This is particularly so since our intelligence services are widely recognised as the best in Europe and other countries would benefit far more from such an arrangement than we would.
The same is true of the European Arrest Warrant. Many advocates of Leave were against the EAW in the first place. I thought that, on balance, its advantages outweighed its disadvantages. But the other parties to the agreement that established it have gained at least as much from the EAW as we have. So again, there is no reason why it could not continue.
Of course, there are those who argue that the EU would be so consumed with hate and spite if we exercise our legitimate right to leave that they would refuse to co-operate in these matters in order to punish us. It seems very strange logic to conclude that we should therefore stay at all costs—but that appears to be what many in the Remain camp are saying.
Last November, the Home Office said in a Command Paper that “accepting CJEU jurisdiction over measures in the field of policing and criminal justice is not risk free. This is because the CJEU can rule in unexpected and unhelpful ways.” And John Sawers, one of the leading advocates of Remain, admitted recently that courts can sometimes put privacy or individual liberty before security.
This brings us to the nub of the decision that we are going to have to make. If our courts, here in the UK, reach decisions that Parliament thinks don’t give sufficient weight to our country's safety, Parliament can legislate to put that right. If the European Court of Justice reaches decisions that don’t give sufficient weight to our security, as it has done, there is nothing we can do about it. That is why, if we wish to recover control of the measures that we need to keep our country safe, we must vote to leave the EU on 23rd June.
The last few weeks have seen a bewildering array of experts on security line up on both sides of the Brexit argument. The Remain side have turned to John Sawers, a former director of MI6, and Lord Evans, a former director of MI5. The Leave side have sought support from Richard Dearlove, another former director of MI6, David Hayden, a former director of the CIA, and Ronald Noble, a former head of Interpol.
How is an interested observer to make sense of all this? And should security even play a part in the Brexit debate? After all, the decision of the European Council that set out the terms of the Prime Minister’s renegotiation said that security is a matter for the member states.
Unfortunately, as is so often the case with the European Union, these words cannot be taken at face value. They are completely at odds with the attitude of the European Court of Justice, which has become a direct threat to our security. So it is essential that these issues become widely known as the referendum approaches.
Among many such decisions, the Court has ruled against the UK refusing entry or deporting EU citizens who are suspected of involvement in terrorism. It is also impeding Home Secretary Theresa May from deporting Abu Hamza’s daughter-in-law, who was convicted of attempting to smuggle a SIM card into prison for him.
And, in some ways most seriously of all, it decided that the UK’s opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which Tony Blair assured us that he had achieved and which David Cameron promised to negotiate, had no effect and did not exist.
One consequence of this is that part of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, which May said was “crucial to fighting crime, protecting children and combating terrorism,” was struck down by the Divisional Court as being inconsistent with the Charter. The surveillance regime provided by the Act has now been referred by the Court of Appeal to the European Court of Justice.
"The current intrusion of the EU into our security arrangements is just the beginning"So the validity of a measure deemed crucial to our security by the Home Secretary and approved by our democratically elected Parliament, now depends on the decision of the entirely unaccountable European Court of Justice.
The debate on Brexit is sometimes conducted on the basis that we have a choice between the status quo and the risk of leaving. The security field demonstrates the fallacy of this contention. The EU is not a static organisation. It is constantly looking to expand its remit. In March, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, called for the establishment of a security union.
So the current intrusion of the EU into our security arrangements is just the beginning. If we remain, it is bound to get worse and worse.
Some of the advocates of Remain have suggested that intelligence-sharing with EU members will suffer if we leave. But our closest intelligence-sharing relationship is with the other countries in the Five Eyes alliance: the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We are not members of any “union” with them and our relationship does not depend on any institutional structure. So there is no reason why we should not continue to co-operate with other EU member states if we leave. This is particularly so since our intelligence services are widely recognised as the best in Europe and other countries would benefit far more from such an arrangement than we would.
The same is true of the European Arrest Warrant. Many advocates of Leave were against the EAW in the first place. I thought that, on balance, its advantages outweighed its disadvantages. But the other parties to the agreement that established it have gained at least as much from the EAW as we have. So again, there is no reason why it could not continue.
Of course, there are those who argue that the EU would be so consumed with hate and spite if we exercise our legitimate right to leave that they would refuse to co-operate in these matters in order to punish us. It seems very strange logic to conclude that we should therefore stay at all costs—but that appears to be what many in the Remain camp are saying.
Last November, the Home Office said in a Command Paper that “accepting CJEU jurisdiction over measures in the field of policing and criminal justice is not risk free. This is because the CJEU can rule in unexpected and unhelpful ways.” And John Sawers, one of the leading advocates of Remain, admitted recently that courts can sometimes put privacy or individual liberty before security.
This brings us to the nub of the decision that we are going to have to make. If our courts, here in the UK, reach decisions that Parliament thinks don’t give sufficient weight to our country's safety, Parliament can legislate to put that right. If the European Court of Justice reaches decisions that don’t give sufficient weight to our security, as it has done, there is nothing we can do about it. That is why, if we wish to recover control of the measures that we need to keep our country safe, we must vote to leave the EU on 23rd June.
