Brexit would make UK safer
Michael Gove last night set out urgent security and border improvements that could be made if Britain votes to quit the EU.
The Justice Secretary said that in the event of Brexit, the Prime Minister would have to enact new laws ‘instantly’ to stop the influence of ‘rogue’ European courts and allow the immediate deportation of terrorists.
But Mr Gove, who is the current favourite of the Tory grassroots to take over from David Cameron, said he wanted the Prime Minister to remain in Number Ten to make the country ‘safer’, and insisted he has no desire to have his job.
He told the Daily Telegraph: ‘I don’t want to do it and there are people who are far better equipped than me to do it.’
The immediate powers Mr Gove wants No10 to take include freeing intelligence agencies from European law, allowing foreign criminals and terrorists to be deported without hindrance and freeing the British Armed Forces from Brussels diktats.
No10 has insisted it will take years to negotiate a new deal with Brussels and extricate ourselves from the EU. But Mr Gove said that it should begin immediately with a series of interim emergency laws.
The leading Leave campaigner also warns that the NHS and schools will not be able to cope with the further influx of immigrants that will come to the UK if the country stays in the EU.
He said: ‘We’ve stressed throughout that the day after we vote to leave, nothing fundamental changes and we still have the same trading arrangements and we start a process of informal talks and negotiations with our European partners.
‘But there are some things that we can change relatively quickly. And one of the things we can do is that we can deal with the European Court of Justice, which has become a rogue court.’
Mr Gove claims that the ECJ is considering a judgment on Britain’s surveillance regime in an attempt to assert ‘legal control over what our intelligence agencies can and cannot do’. He said that under the new laws ‘life in this country would change because Britain would be safer’.
The referendum campaign is due to increase in temperature tomorrow when Mr Gove and Chancellor George Osborne give rival TV interviews.
Meanwhile a senior Bank of England official has claimed the safeguards Mr Cameron secured to protect Britain and the City of London from the eurozone are not as strong as claimed.
As part of his deal with Brussels to keep Britain in the EU, the PM insisted he won guarantees that the UK would not be required to fund euro bailouts or sign up to draconian banking regulations.
He claimed a mechanism was now in place so that Britain could ‘unilaterally’ complain directly to national leaders on the European Council to ensure the country is not discriminated against.
But a letter from Bank of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe to MPs suggests that the Government has overstated its case.
It will fuel fears that Britain could be clobbered by rules designed to prop up the single currency and the region’s basket-case banks if it votes to stay in the EU on June 23.
