The EU published some slides yesterday on police and judicial cooperation (HERE). They were presented to the Council working party and set out some ideas that may or may not become official negotiating guidelines. The newspapers have picked up on a couple of aspects about "guillotine" clauses. These would end the agreement if we ever left the ECHR or if our data protection laws were ever deemed inadequate (slide 7). The Guardian report it HERE.
This is important because we need an agreement on police and judicial matters for our security but leaving the ECHR is something the government has wanted to do for a long time, as The Guardian report:
"A year before the Brexit referendum in 2016, Theresa May had argued that the UK should “should leave ]the ECHR]... regardless of the referendum result”, arguing that it “can bind the hands of parliament, adds nothing to our prosperity, makes us less secure by preventing the deportation of dangerous foreign nationals”.
But now the EU look very likely to make a future agreement on policing conditional on the UK remaining a member of the ECHR.
If you look at the UK Future Partnership paper published last September:
"As part of a deep and special partnership, it will be in the mutual interest of the UK and the EU to agree new arrangements that enable them to sustain cooperation across a wide range of these structures and measures [security, law enforcement and criminal justice], reflecting the importance of the extensive collaboration that currently exists"
Or the more recent Future Framework paper on civil judicial cooperation from June this year:
"A new, bespoke agreement across the full range of civil judicial cooperation should form part of
wider UK-EU discussions on the framework for our future relationship"
And reading the details of the government's position it's clear we want a bespoke agreement (more than any other third country has) to enjoy virtually everything we had as a member. This is happening as the West Midlands Police warn (HERE) about the security threat
"if the force lose access to crucial systems". And this morning as I write this Barnier is giving a speech and a press conference where he has confirmed:
"He wants there to be effective exchange of information between the UK and the EU after Brexit in relation to police and judicial cooperation. But that will not be allowed on the same basis as now, he says. He says the UK will not be allowed access to EU-only or Schengen-only databases".
So, that's it. We will not be allowed the access we have at the moment to the "crucial systems" the West Midlands and no doubt other police forces want. Before the vote we were warned Brexit would make us poorer and less secure. We know about being poorer as we dropped from the top of the growth league to the bottom and now we know we will be less secure.
Anybody who still thinks Brexit is a good idea either doesn't read the newspapers or can't think clearly for themselves.
What is becoming clearer by the week is that the lack of a realistic and coherent plan from the beginning means the EU is always several steps ahead of us and are constantly setting the agenda which we then have to respond to. Before the Article 50 letter, we had a bit of leverage but as soon as it was triggered we lost control of everything. Having a plan would have helped but even now, after more than a year we still do not know what we want.
