Andrew Dismore

At City Hall’s Police and Crime Committee meeting,Andrew Dismore AM, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt and Deputy Mayor for Policing Sophie Linden about  post Brexit security.

(video https://vimeo.com/243113978 )

Mr Dismore said:

‘I had not intended to speak on the issue of Brexit and its impact on security and law enforcement, but I had to intervene after the bizarre questioning by the Conservatives, who were trying to get the police to accept that a ‘no deal’ Brexit would not be bad for London’s security. Assistant Commissioner Hewitt made clear that the present arrangements were essential and any changes that were less effective would present serious problems. 

‘The Mayor has rightly set out six ‘red lines’ where he believes moving away from current arrangements “is simply not an option”. These are Europol; the European Arrest Warrant; the Schengen Information System II; EU Passenger Name Records; the European Criminal Records Information System; and Prüm arrangements (access to DNA profiles, fingerprint data and vehicle registrations).

‘I pointed out that without the European Arrest Warrant we would not have bene able to extradite the 14/7 bomber from Italy in only two weeks; and that the other security arrangements were essential to intelligence gathering, for example to combat people trafficking, the importation of illegal  firearms, and to control of who is coming in and going out.

‘To suggest a ‘no deal’ Brexit would produce arrangements as good as we have now is fanciful, unless the Conservatives are suggesting the EU would agree to an ‘a la carte’ no deal’, where they try to reproduce what we have now at the same time as not having anything else in a ‘no deal deal’. Clearly there is no sign of that.

What is worrying for the Met and the police nationally is the uncertainty. Like we are seeing with many businesses also facing the uncertainties of the talks that are making little if any progress, unless there is clarity by the end of the year, with the 2019 deadline approaching fast, the Met. confirmed they will have to start devoting scarce resources to developing contingency plans for a hard ‘no deal’ Brexit.

The Conservative Brexiteers are playing fast and loose with our security in their dangerous poker game with the EU and it is Londoners who are set to face the consequences.’