This issue is not at all about shaking off Eurosceptics; it is about deciding what is sensible for the United Kingdom in line with our values, our traditions and our own rule of law. As many right hon. and hon. Members have indicated, there is no reason for these provisions that could not have been achieved by other means. Furthermore, I have still not had an answer to the question: what is so special about the European Union and the cross-border arrangements that operate within it, compared with anywhere else in the world, where we will find murderers, traffickers and all the other problems that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary mentioned? They problems are found in the rest of the world and in Europe, yet we have these special arrangements for Europe alone. The answer is simple: it is about sovereignty.
This is all about giving in to the European Union, through the European Communities Act 1972. Watching both Front-Bench teams is rather like watching an attempt to get out of a paper bag—except for the fact that this paper bag is a steel mesh. The steel mesh is the European Court of Justice and sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act. I respect what the Home Secretary is trying to do because she is stuck and trapped in arrangements that are being dictated by the very people—Mr Juncker, for example, who came forward
with these proposals from the European Commission, and Viviane Reding, another European Commissioner of the first order—who are committed to driving forward these arrangements in the belief that if they could manage to secure a EU-wide criminal justice system, they could make further progress towards the European political union that they want. That is really what it is all about. It is simply naïve and disingenuous to put it any other way.