I wrote in my last post, musing on what might happen if Julian Assange were to win his Supreme Court appeal, that

many Eurosceptics would prefer us simply to pull out of the entire system of criminal cooperation in Europe, and would use the difficulty to lobby hard for this area of policy to be fully “repatriated” on the back of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Well, now helpfully these Eurosceptics, or at least the Conservatives ones in the Commons, have identified themselves by writing a letter about it to the Telegraph:

We have deep concerns about the operation of the European Arrest Warrant for our citizens. We want the UK Supreme Court to have the last word on UK crime and policing, not the European Court of Justice. The recent study by Open Europe offers a pragmatic alternative. Britain should exercise its “opt out” from 130 measures under the EU’s crime and policing plan by 2014.

It seems to me the reference to concern “for our citizens” can be read as an attempt to distance this call from the cause of Julian Assange – he’s not a British citizen of course.

Here’s the Open Europe paper – “An Unavoidable Choice” – that the MPs refer to:

2012-02-06T11:34:20+00:00Tags: , , , |