EU Justice and Home Affairs Measures

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is wise in his decision. We have had some facts and figures that back up both his judgment and the judgment of the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Secretary. Over the past five years, slightly more than 5,000 people have been extradited from the UK to Europe after an arrest warrant was issued. They include suspects wanted for 124 murders, more than 100 rapes, nearly 500 serious assaults, and in connection with seven terrorism cases. For those who rightly worry about the fate of British citizens, only 217 of those 5,000 were British—just 4.3% of the total.

Since 2009, the arrest warrant has also seen 647 people returned to this country to face justice, including 51 suspected killers, 80 suspected paedophiles, 46 suspected violent thugs and one wanted terrorist. The warrant works both ways and it works effectively. Without the arrest warrant, there are 22 EU member states that could refuse to extradite their own nationals to the UK, including Spain, France and Germany, so it does act in the safety of our country and our citizens as well. The question for those who oppose the European arrest warrant is: can it be worth putting the safety of our fellow citizens at risk a bit more than it is now for the genuine constitutional concerns that they have? I hope that even those who are against our opting back into the European arrest warrant will admit that not opting in would put the safety of our fellow citizens in this country at greater risk. They might well say that that would be worth while, but I hope that they acknowledge that fact, given the surprising unanimity about it among experts in law enforcement and criminal justice.

[Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

Surprise, surprise.

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman says that, but the job of police officers and criminal justice agencies around the world is to keep citizens safe. When they recommend that something is keeping us safe, we should take them seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies]

That is a point well made. Everybody knows that the European Union is not perfect, that mistakes have been made and that we need reform. That is about co-operative engagement to do things that are sensible not just for the citizens of Britain but for those of Europe.

[Douglas Carswell]

We need to leave it.

[Geraint Davies]

To leave would be to expose us to criminals, terrorists, rapists and child abusers, and that appears to be a cost that those from UKIP and elsewhere think worth paying. I do not think we could look at the mothers and fathers of people who had been killed by villains if those crimes could have been prevented by co-operation—and all in the name of prejudice from UKIP and others.

Across Europe there are something like 3,600 organised groups involved in drugs, trafficking children or terror, and they need to be confronted. There is no point pretending that we exist in some sort of fish and chip shop Britain, floating away in splendid isolation where villains cannot jump on board. If we pull ourselves out of the European arrest warrant, we could be a safe haven for them. People have made much of individual cases. We know from individual cases—Hussein Osman, the 21/7 bomber who was brought to justice from Italy thanks to the European arrest warrant; Jeremy Forrestt, the teacher who abducted a schoolgirl and took her to France and was brought back; and Jason McKay who murdered his girlfriend and went to Poland—that there is an endless list of villains who have been brought to justice by the co-operation of our emerging civilisation in Europe.

This matter is enormously important to people across the UK. I think we all agree with subsidiarity and with taking decisions at the most local level possible. However, decisions should not be taken at the cost of deaths, molestation, abuse, trafficking or terror threats—that would be completely ridiculous. I have no hesitation in supporting the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)]

The motion proposes “That this House endorses” the Government’s application to opt back into the European arrest warrant. We should not do so. Mine is the only party to state unequivocally that we should not do so: there is 100% agreement on this Bench. [Laughter.] For all their huffing and puffing, those on the two Front Benches are at one on this issue. They are willing to opt to hand more powers over to Europe, and to hand over United Kingdom citizens to be extradited without evidence.

We need extradition. It is right and proper that those who are accused of crimes in one jurisdiction can be transferred from another to face justice, and I recognise the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). We do indeed need cross-border co-operation; I just happen to think that the European arrest warrant is a bad way of arranging it. As the Baker review put it in 2011, the basis of the European arrest warrant is an

“acceptance of a foreign warrant by national judicial authorities without an inquiry into the facts”.

That makes a system of “tick box” extradition inevitable. Provided that the forms are filled in correctly, and irrespective of the strength of the evidence against the defendant, judicial authorities must permit extradition.

Defenders of the European arrest warrant like to cite the new “proportionality test”, as if that would suddenly put right all that has already been found to be wrong with the system. It will not. What is needed is not a proportionality test, but a testing of the evidence in a British court. What is so objectionable about this measure is the lack of an evidential test. The “E word” is not “Europe”, but “evidence”.

The European arrest warrant is built on the fallacy that the different justice systems in the European Union are the same—on the idea of “mutual recognition”. The justice systems in individual member states are not the same. In some member states, public prosecutors are able to exercise a wide degree of latitude, of discretion, before bringing charges; others, such as Poland, have far less discretion. In some legal systems, such as our own, there is a very strong presumption of innocence; in others, the presumption is less strong.

Back in December 2002, before he led the opposition to the European arrest warrant, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) told the House that if we signed up to it

“we will be taking other…judicial systems on trust.”

Indeed. The right hon. Member for Witney also said that he found

“the European arrest warrant highly objectionable”. —[Official Report, 9 December 2002; Vol. 396, c. 107-8.]

Writing in The Daily Telegraph the other day, a former leader of my former party, Lord Howard, helpfully reminded everyone that, in opposition, he and his party had opposed the introduction of the European arrest warrant. Indeed they did. Parties do one thing in opposition, and another thing in office.

This is not merely a question of whether to opt back into the European arrest warrant. It is also a question of credibility: the credibility of the Government Front Bench. The Government say that they oppose a federal Europe, yet today they are lining up to vote to federalise the system of extradition. They claim to want to return powers to Britain, yet today they will cheerfully vote to hand them away.

The British left once understood what was wrong with this. It was thrilling to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) speak so eloquently and so powerfully. The British left would once have sided with individual liberty and against the power of the Euro-elites. My former colleagues should have the backbone to stand up to a Home Office Minister who is in the pockets of Home Office mandarins, and I hope that they will do so.