Emergency anti-terror law is a start but the Government must go much further
Terror clamp
THE emergency anti-terror law announced yesterday is a start — but the Government must go much further.
Immediately ending automatic release for terrorists, including those already in jail, is right. Public safety must come first. It is utterly appalling that up to now it has not.
But continuing to hand supremely dangerous individuals their chance of freedom after just two-thirds of their sentence only means another few months inside for some.
And we are then meant to trust a parole board, after their ineptitude over cab rapist John Worboys, to judge whether any terrorist is truly deradicalised, as they will all claim.
So we welcome further plans for sentences to be served in full — and jihadists to be freed only after a rigorous review by counter-terror experts to establish if it is safe.
The bleating from the likes of Liberty is tiresomely predictable. So too will be the court challenges by human rights lawyers.
But it is long overdue that the lives of innocent people are prioritised over the rights of murderous fanatics. The Government must fulfil on this pledge. The public will be right behind them.
And if European human rights laws stand in their way, we will have to reconsider our involvement in those too.
EU’s in denial
WE know it’s only their opening gambit. Even so, the EU’s demands from newly independent Britain are laughable.
They represent an almost childlike refusal to recognise what happened last Friday at 11pm.
Brussels will not be able to bully Britain into signing over the fishing access we currently enjoy.Nor insist we obey its standards, its rules and its court’s judgments.
We might as well counter-argue that it must stick to OURS and bow before our Supreme Court. Boris Johnson will negotiate not as a supplicant but an equal partner. If that leads to no trade deal, so be it.
Britain must prepare for the thinnest of deals, or none. And the Government is wise to begin parallel negotiations with other countries at once.
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Those will aim to reach mutually beneficial agreements, without either side placing impossible restrictions on the other. The EU’s motivation is entirely different — and far more cynical:
Limiting its own Brexit damage while trying to hobble a Britain whose potential now scares Brussels to death. And with good reason, if other firms follow Nissan, reportedly preparing to shift its EU manufacturing to Sunderland.
Voters back a clean break if need be. And there is no aspect of our sovereignty Boris can, or should, give up.
The sooner Michel Barnier and his bosses grasp that, the better.
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