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No problem, Ray, I have some sympathy regarding your views of Abu Hamza, as he is a convicted terrorist (Abu Qatada was cleared of all charges after his extradition to Jordan).

However, it didn’t take 10 years to extradite Abu Hamza to the USA.  The Americans wanted him sooner, but as he'd already been convicted in the UK of terrorism charges, he had to serve his 7 year sentence in the UK first.  During his incarceration in the UK, his legal team battled to prevent his extradition to the USA and the European Court of Human Rights did delay it - because of concerns that extraditing someone to a life sentence without parole, to be spent in solitary confinement, was incompatible with the European system of human rights (although Egyptian by birth, Abu Hamza did have British citizenship).  However, the Court received the reassurances it needed from the American Embassy and Abu Hamza was extradited to the USA to face charges in 2012.  He was convicted in 2014 and received two consecutive life sentences with no possibility of release.  So, although it took 8 years to extradite him to the USA, he was in prison in the UK for 7 of those years.

Fortunately, the UK government subsequently stripped Abu Hamza of his British citizenship – and the European parliament did not, and does not, have the power to prevent the UK from doing so.  So whilst I’m sure you’d agree with me that it couldn’t have happened to a ‘nicer’ man ;o) it is important to understand the purpose of the European Court of Human Rights and remember that, ultimately, they have to be an independent arbiter in these cases.

Kind regards,

Kim

Congratulations Kim on your research you obviously have a lot of free time but it will not stop Brexit. It is going to happen.I am afraid I will always hold the EU responsible for bringing 23000 Somalians to the West Midlands via Holland Latvians now  the prime leaders responsible for people trafficking and major crime in the Midlands Romanians begging for money outside our supermarkets.you might think that’s not a problem in SPAIN but Brits don’t want it here.

Hi,

The EU pacts you quote are the overarching rules I referenced in my previous post.

There are two main types of EU law.  There are EU regulations, most of which apply automatically in all 28 EU member states - so most EU regulations are part of UK law.

Then there are EU directives, which set out an aim for member states to achieve. They don't specify how to achieve it, but directives have to be implemented by a national law. The UK normally does this through a statutory instrument.

When the six European states created the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957, its core function was fostering economic cooperation between its founding member states.  They did so in the form of an international treaty (the Treaty of Rome) that was binding between them. That treaty also created the European Court of Justice. In an important ruling in 1964, the Court said that the states had agreed to limit their sovereign rights (not lose them) in the areas covered by the treaty and could not adopt national laws that were incompatible with the overarching European law. This principle of ‘primacy’ of EU law has been accepted and applied by national courts, including the UK courts.  The Court of Justice does not, however, have any power to strike down national law; this is a task for the national courts. The national courts will, however, seek to resolve the conflict through interpretation, but UK courts are required not to enforce UK laws to the extent that they are incompatible with EU obligations.  So when the UK joined the ‘Common Market’ on 1 January 1973, these obligations were already enshrined in law and the UK accepted them.

With the 1992 Maastrict Treaty, the EC became the EU and, amongst other things, set in motion plans for creation of the Euro a decade later. It also created European citizenship, common foreign policy and closer judicial cooperation.  However, when John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty, he secured not only an opt-out of economic and monetary union – ensuring that it would be up to the UK whether or not to join the single currency – but also the removal of the social chapter from the body of the treaty itself.  So, not only did all this happen after the UK became contributing members of the EC/Common Market, but the UK continued to negotiate opt-outs from some regulations, including the Schengen travel zone; the importance of this particular opt-out is that the UK retained control of its borders - although you could be forgiven for believing otherwise from the misinformation and lies printed in the gutter press.

Kind regards,

Kim

Yes, it can.  The minimum rate of VAT agreed and set by the EU is 15%.  The UK, in accordance with its OWN taxation laws, has set a prevailing standard rate of VAT for goods and services of 20%.  Therefore, the UK government could, if it chose, decide to reduce the UK's rate of VAT by up to 5%.

Not lots of free time, Ray, just lots of practice in the early part of my career, when I spent many hours undertaking business analysis, so I know the places to look - and I'm not talking about the front page of The Daily Mail!  ;o)

I agree this will probably not stop Brexit, but I despise the gutter press and social media which repeatedly publish "stories" to deliberately misinform the public and serve the agenda of their masters and shareholders.  Some people may be happy to take everything they read at face value, blindly accepting their lies as fact, but I'm not one of them.

Still, many Brexiteers must be relieved to see this week that the Conservative Party's greatest asset isn't BoJo - it's Corbyn!  :o)

Kind regards,

Kim

Can I suggest an easy-to-read source of reliable, solid info on the EU, its structures and how it works. 

United States of Europe : The Superpower No-One Talks About, T.R. Reid. Available for peanuts on Amazon.

The author is American, and unbiased wrt current British politics. 

I picked one up maybe 10 years ago in Logan Airport. Excellent. 

You can educate yourself, or you can remain uninformed and vote accordingly.

That will be before the Lisbon treaty then!

Wow, you obtained, read, digested and dismissed that book in maybe half an hour.

And after Winston Churchill, speech delivered at the University of Zurich, 19 September 1946. .But before Oswald Mosley- "An inspiration for 21st Europe", If you would like a good read, compared to the lefty left-overs of political correctness, who wish to populate the UK common people & the UK common of houses, & withdraw to the Isles.

V   

We shouldn't be so quick to judge, Corbyn said Boris Johnson's WA was worse than Theresa May's before it was even published and dear old Nicola Sturgeon said she wouldn't support any WA sponsored by Boris whether she got to read it or not and whether it was good or not.

The world is full of prejudice given so many of us go for prima facie judgements - life's far too short to read everything :)