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There Goes Another Veto
Reports this morning appear to confirm yesterday's rumour that Britain was preparing to surrender its EU veto on policing and judicial matters.
The Times reports that the battle of wills between the foreign office (which argues that the majority voting is better on issues of international law) and the home office (which believes that the loss of the veto threatens Britain's judicial independence) has been won by the Camel Corps in the FO.
"Ministers will set out conditions tomorrow for the transfer of control to the EU over the creation of new crimes that will apply in Britain as well as standardised court procedures," the newspaper says.
This is, as the report continues, a dramatic policy change. The veto was one of Tony Blair's infamous "red lines" which would not be crossed while the EU constitution was being drafted. Of course, he let the constitution's drafters trample over this, and several other "sacred" read lines too. Now, with the constitution dead in the water, the government is preparing to give federalists more than it had offered back in 2004. As late as yesterday, it appeared that the home office was winning the debate, helped no doubt by the fact that Germany was not prepared to see parts of the treaty reintroduced piecemeal. Smaller nations, including Ireland, also opposed removal of the veto.
The opposition Tories are signalling - for once - that they won't let the veto go without a fight. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, was let off his leash yesterday as news of the new proposals emerged. “Retaining the national veto over policing, our courts and our criminal laws is vital to the UK national interest and the rights of British citizens,” he wrote in a letter to home secretary John Reid.
The EU commission says that removing the veto will assist in the fight against terror. However, the European commissioner for justice Franco Frattini has his eyes on a bigger prize: He sees the new system as a means of speeding the creation of an entirely new set of pan-European laws, including incitement to racial hatred.
