COMMENT: Calum Steele is the General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation and 2nd Vice President of the European Confederation of Police (EuroCOP).

THE impact of Brexit and how my European peers and colleagues react whenever policing and justice is discussed is palpable. 

Policing and prosecution co-operation through EuroPol and EuroJust rely on, among other things, confidence that other members operate to the same high standards of integrity in legal systems that share the same safeguards and ethical approaches as their own.

Just last month the European Confederation of Police (EuroCOP) arranged a conference on terrorism that drew experts from the legal profession, academia, and policing from across Europe. The contributions of these speakers provided the starkest reminder that future European policing co-operation with the UK is far from guaranteed.

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As speaker after speaker commented on the importance of co-operation, information sharing and complexities of multi-jurisdictional investigations, the inevitable reference to the UK was met with a dismissive: “well that’s their problem”. 

In the coffee breaks, further discussions reinforced considerable reluctance to co-operate with a country that “isn’t willing to sign up to our common values.” 

This resolve was also apparent a few weeks earlier when, along with other EuroCOP officials,I met Jean-Claude Juncker to discuss policing and justice issues from the perspective of European police unions. 

“We are very interested in Scotland” was the response I received when we broached the subject of Brexit. The subsequent discussions however revealed a determination that as it was the UK who was leaving, it was up to the UK to come up with solutions to problems their exit identified. 

As policing south of the border increasingly looks to the United States for inspiration and risks becoming more adversarial and enforcement minded, there is an increasing reality that Scotland looks to Europe.

Earlier this year a delegation from the Police Union in Sweden visited us on a fact-finding mission in view of the positive light in which Scottish policing is held by our European neighbours.

In 2013 a Home Secretary by the name of Theresa May led the UK out of over 100 European justice and home affairs policies. 

One consequence of this was that the UK was momentarily removed from the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). 

Realising its error and through a series of less than transparent Commons votes that caused deep divisions within her own party the UK eventually opted back into some, including the EAW, the following year. 

The deep division and resentment this hokey-cokey created still runs deep with her party to this day. 

The recent assurance that, until Brexit happens, the UK will continue as full members of EuroPOL potentially indicates that, despite the bruising she took over the EAW in 2014, Mrs May appreciates there are more informed voices on policing and security co-operation than in her own party. 

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To date she has however displayed little appreciation of the population challenge facing Scotland.

The question is: can someone who is so vehemently opposed to the ECHR which undoubtedly underpins the values our European colleagues talk about and who has a history of making rash justice decisions be relied upon to deliver undiluted policing co-operation in a no ECHR, post-Brexit world? I, for one, am not so sure.