I'm no expert on criminal law, but ...

... Chris Huhne's ramblings* about how brilliant the EU is here just don't make sense:

The European Arrest Warrant, shepherded through the European parliament by Liberal Democrat MEPs, has slashed extradition times across the EU from an average of 18 months to just 43 days. Without it, rapists, murderers, armed robbers and paedophiles would not have faced trial, conviction and prison. If the Conservatives had their way, it is likely that many of these crooks would still be sipping sangria on a beach. It is astonishing that a party that sees itself as tough on crime would oppose something that makes it easier to make criminals face justice.

Has he never heard of the ancient concept of extradition? If you know that one of your criminals has gone abroad, you just ask for him to be sent back; there's little reason to assume that the other country would want to shelter them. The UK has plenty of extradition treaties it can fall back on.

Another consequence of Tory hostility to the warrant is that they would have us spend £25m a year warehousing criminals in our overcrowded prisons rather than sending them swiftly to face trial in another European country. This is the best-case scenario. Without the increased co-operation between police forces fostered by the European Arrest Warrant, many of these felons might still be stalking British streets. If the Tories take us out of the European Arrest Warrant, as they have promised, then they will turn Britain into a safe haven for the worst offenders in Europe. There is no better example of why they are unfit to govern.

Wouldn't an independent UK have the right to deport foreign criminals, whether the other country had asked for their return or not? Are non-EU countries like Norway, Switzerland or Iceland, or indeed the Channel Islands, really all "a safe haven for the worst offenders in Europe"?

It is astonishing that anyone would want to make it more difficult for us to check whether people coming to this country are dangerous criminals. It is reckless in the extreme.

Again, wouldn't an independent UK be able to do whatever checks it feels like? There's no bar to reciprocal exchanges of information - they tell us about their crim's and we'll tell them about ours?

I am appalled that this election campaign has not allowed for a serious discussion about how to tackle cross-border crime.

If his dream is a 'Europe without borders', then by definition there'd be less cross-border crime, or what's his point? Agreed, borders make life a little bit more complicated for everybody, but they must make things a whole lot more difficult for criminals**, so from that point of view the more borders the better.

* Via WfW.

** If you steal £26.5 million in Northern Irish banknotes, you're pretty restricted as to where you can launder them; steal the same amount in Euros and you've a much wider choice ...