We cannot let EU judges continue to rule our lives
SO NOW we know, courtesy of leaked documents, the vision of Brexit as seen by EU officials. It isn’t a lot different from the Liberal Democrats’ idea of Brexit: they see Britain as leaving the EU in name but not really leaving at all.
The EU is demanding that the three million citizens of other EU countries who are living in Britain continue to have their rights enforced by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for the rest of their lives.
The new President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, yesterday claimed that this would be a “red line” for EU negotiators. Any EU citizens living in Britain would still have their residency rights, their employment rights and their welfare rights enforced by a bunch of judges in Luxembourg. It would include the right to bring family members into Britain.
I know that EU negotiators want to be seen playing hardball so as to discourage other countries from fleeing the EU but the idea that Britain should remain bound by the ECJ after Brexit is nonsense.
The court was set up to enforce the EU’s own laws and consists of one judge for each of the EU’s 28 member states. Following Brexit it will no longer have a British judge and Britain’s internal affairs will no longer be bound by EU law so what possible legal basis is there for the ECJ’s rulings to be applied here?
THE government that is elected on June 8 should of course respect the rights of EU citizens who are already living in Britain. Many moved to this country, taking up jobs, buying houses and putting their children into British schools, in the belief that they would have the right to reside here indefinitely.
It would be an injustice if come Brexit we ordered them to up sticks. Brexit is not and never has been about trying to stop all migration, only to control it in such a way that it is beneficial to our economy without putting undue burdens on our public services.
So yes, we should accept the principle of those EU citizens already here continuing to enjoy rights of residency. But subjecting Britain to rulings of