£6,173,710. drugs assets missing.

[Workingman]

I am one of the few to stand up for the EU on VV, so when I see claims made against the EU based on fiction or that are over-egged, and there are more than a few, I have no problem in making a challenge and I always try to do it in a reasonable fashion.

Leaving the EU and bringing back the death penalty is one such case.

Suff said: "Once we have left the EU, bring back the death penalty for convicted drug dealers."

Making such a claim is one such case. It places the poison in people's minds that we do not have the death penalty because of the EU, but that is only part of the story. The implication being that once we leave the EU we are free to reinstate the death penalty any time we like purely and simply because we have left the EU: it is not true.

It is true that the present day EU (evolved from the EEC) requires members and applicants to be signatories of the ECHR and to forego the death penalty, but it was not always the case. France had it till 1981 and Italy till 2009. Once we leave the EU we will not be bound by any of of that.... but we will still be in the ECHR. The EU will have no part to play in how we deal with the ECHR or whether we have the death penalty or not.

The UK, of its own free will, abolished death penalty in 1965. pre-empting the EU by some decades. The UK was also a founder member of the Council of Europe out of which came the ECHR. The CofE and ECHR are not part of, nor are they controlled by, the EU though the EU is a member, signatory and ratifier of their articles and protocols.

If anything prevents the UK reinstating the death penalty then being a signatory to the ECHR is one. Once we have left the EU withdrawal is a possibility, but still nothing to do with the EU, and it is fraught with dangers. Doing so would send us to the periphery of the Council of Europe along with Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus - what great company to be in.

Another is our own parliament's reluctance to reinstate it. As I said earlier a number of Bills have been proposed to bring it back in some cases and every one has been defeated.

[Suff]

All true WM, I don't deny it and, like you, I have championed the EU on occasions. Although those occasions became fewer and fewer. The only one left, IMO, is climate. Where the unelected and unanswerable Commission and Council of Ministers are able to drive agendas that elected politicians would be unable to do.

Whilst the UK did remove the death penalty for most things, it remained until 1999 for Arson on her Majesty's shipyards and for Treason. It was Blair who finally removed these and gave up our opt out's in the treaties for those offences.

Whilst I also agree that it is a fairly long shot that the UK might bring back the death penalty, it is also true that the UK is not free to make that decision so long as the UK remains in the EU. It comes down to self determination and I am all for that. Over the last two decades I believe the EU has overstepped it's remit and has become the Criminal Protection Service writ large.

What we do with our newly reinvested determination is up to us. But, right now, what we do about drug dealers falls largely within the remit of the ECJ, the UK HRA, created to enact the EU human rights directives and any challenges which might go to Strasbourg when the UK has ruled.

I felt it was right to comment on the fact that once we are out of the EU we can, if we wish, decide to re-enact the death penalty. That is a benefit of leaving in my book. I would never have said that we should do this, had we not decided to leave the EU, because I'm very well aware that we can't now and could not then.

I don't say these things to "poison" the debate against the EU. I say them because I believe people should understand what it means to be in the EU and what we stand to gain by leaving it and this is a case in point. We're leaving. No poisoning needed. Once we have left, are finally shut of them and have finished the transition period, however long that will be, then the upsides will be visible alongside the downsides.

To me, all it takes is a really strong, or a really scared, government; to do something solid to deal with drugs dealers.