David Cameron Urged To Repatriate Police Powers From Brussels

PM Faces Another Tussle With Backbenchers Over Europe

David Cameron faces a renewed stand-off with Tory MPs over the EU after more than 100 backbenchers demanded police powers be repatriated from Brussels.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph signed by half of his party's backbenchers, the prime minister was urged to pull out of a raft of measures such as the European arrest warrant.

Their call came after the Open Europe think-tank suggested last week that the government faced a "one-off opportunity" to repatriate 130 EU laws on crime and policing.

A provision in the Lisbon Treaty means ministers must decide before June 2014 whether the entire package should continue to apply to the UK, it claimed.

The MPs, including former shadow home secretary David Davis and the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee Graham Brady, said the Open Europe report offered a "pragmatic alternative" to European Commission plans for "a pan-European code of Euro Crimes".

Declining to sign up would still leave open the option to opt back in to any individual element deemed vital on a case-by-case basis, they wrote.

"We need practical co-operation to fight terrorism, drugs, human trafficking and other cross border crimes - not harmonisation of national criminal laws...

"We do not wish to subordinate UK authorities to a pan-European Public Prosecutor.

"We do not want to see British police forces subjected to mandatory demands by European police under the European Investigation Order.

"We have deep concerns about the operation of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) for our citizens.

"We want the UK Supreme Court to have the last word on UK crime and policing, not the European Court of Justice."

Britain's long-standing intelligence relations with the US showed the UK did "not have to cede democratic control with close partners in order to cooperate effectively with them.

"We should maintain our national standards of justice and democratic control over crime and policing - but let other nations integrate more closely if they wish."

It comes as Labour's shadow Europe minister Emma Reynolds hit out at Cameron in a blog for the Huffington Post, saying "The failure of Cameron's strategy in Europe has been exposed and will continue to damage British interests long past the headlines of this week's papers."