The true cost of EU’s free movement rules
They prevent us from kicking out killers and drug dealers
FREE movement rules have left Britain powerless to kick out some of the EU’s worst killers, rapists and drug dealers, an explosive dossier reveals today.
The ‘rights’ the criminals enjoy as EU citizens means we cannot deport them despite their despicable crimes.
British courts – bound by Brussels regulations – have ruled their right to live where they like trumps our elected Government’s desire to boot them out.
The Vote Leave campaign today releases a list of 50 EU convicts we cannot send home, many of whom are out of jail. They include six killers, five sex attackers and 13 drug dealers.
All but two were sentenced in the UK to terms of imprisonment exceeding a year. Had it not been for EU law, they would have been automatically deported.
Last week Westminster’s home affairs committee said the number of foreign criminals the Government had failed to deport was enough to fill a ‘small town’.
The devastating report focused on the failure to transfer EU prisoners to serve their sentences in their home nations. MPs said the failures were so dire they cast doubt on the point of remaining in the EU.
Today’s dossier focuses on convicts the UK wants to deport after serving their sentence but cannot, leaving us stuck with some of
‘How Europe makes us less safe’
Europe’s worst criminals. Justice minister Dominic Raab said: ‘This is yet more evidence of how EU membership makes us less safe. Free movement of people allows unelected judges in the rogue European Court to decide who we can and can’t deport.
‘This puts British families at risk. It squanders UK taxpayers’ money on keeping them in prison. Outside the EU, we can take back control of our borders, deport more dangerous criminals, and strengthen public protection.’
The Home Secretary has the power to deport foreign nationals if it would ‘ be conducive to the public good’.
UK law says a person who is sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment should be deported automatically.
However, Vote Leave said this has no application where deportation ‘ would breach rights of the foreign criminal under the EU treaties’. The EU Treaties give every EU citizen the right to enter the UK and ‘reside freely’.
The treaties say convicts must pose a ‘present’ threat to be deported – something that has had a devastating impact on our ability to deport anybody whose release is subject to a Parole Board decision.
As the Parole Board will release someone only if they believe they are not likely to re-offend, convicts can cite the board’s decision to say they are not a ‘present threat’ – and should be allowed to stay.
And EU citizens who have lived in the UK for more than five years may be removed only on ‘ serious grounds of public policy and public security’. More than ten years of residency requires ‘ imperative grounds of public security’.
Ministers claim David Cameron’s renegotiation means it will be able to prevent dangerous EU nationals coming to the UK and make it easier to deport. But Vote Leave said: ‘This is false. The renegotiation does not in any way relax the onerous requirements of EU law which prevent the UK deporting dangerous criminals.’
Brussels rules also make it harder to keep EU criminals out of Britain in the first place – demanding a ‘ serious, credible and present threat’ – a far higher threshold which binds the hands of officials.
Yesterday, Home Secretary Theresa May said deportations to EU countries have tripled to 3,451 in 2015/16.
But she admitted that the Government needed to do more.
And it emerged only 73 EU prisoners have been deported from UK jails under a transfer deal – despite David Cameron pledging to intervene to end the scandal of EU convicts filling up our packed prisons.
Since the deal was introduced in December 2011, only 73 have been returned under the agreement – around one every three weeks, according to figures published by the Ministry of Justice.
But immigration minister James Brokenshire said: ‘The UK sought greater control over the deportation of foreign criminals in its EU renegotiation – and that’s precisely what the Prime Minister’s deal delivered.
‘Our access to the European Arrest Warrant has allowed us to deport 6,500 European criminals since 2010. That’s 130 times the number of criminals Vote Leave have identified. That’s just one of the reasons we are safer inside the EU, where we can cooperate to deal far more effectively with crime and security.’