Evening Standard comment: Keeping London safe will be harder post-Brexit; White House race is on; Pizza plot’s secret recipe

Evening Standard Comment13 November 2018
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Londoners are worrying about violent crime on their local streets. So heading off to Europe to talk about policing might seem to be a mistake.

Almost a third of people arrested in London are foreign nationals, half of them from the EU. At the moment the police work with rules which allow them to share information and arrest warrants.

“Last year alone, our police used the EU tools to make 162,000 requests for information from our colleagues across Europe”, says Mr Khan. And 10,000 people have been extradited from the UK to other EU states since 2004.

All of this would be at risk without a deal on security, which would make it much harder to bring suspects back to face justice. Mr Khan says this would let foreign criminals off the hook.

But even if there is agreement, it’s unlikely that the powerful European Arrest Warrant we can use now will be replicated outside the EU.

Not long ago the Government issued one in pursuit of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the Russians it has accused over the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury.

Outside the EU, this country would have to rely on unwieldy extradition treaties and individual agreements with individual countries which could take years to reach, and which would be less effective than the deal we have now.

So even if some sort of agreement is reached on security information sharing, the British justice system will be weaker and criminals less likely to be caught and convicted.

That’s another thing ministers don’t like to discuss when they talk up the chances of a successful exit deal.

White House race is on

Ignore the excitable claims by a few media-hungry former advisers. Hillary Clinton probably isn’t going to run again for the US Presidency in 2020. And if you want to see a Democratic win against President Trump, you’d better hope she doesn’t try.

The more interesting question right now is: what will Michelle Obama do? She’s just published Becoming, a memoir of an already extraordinary life. And, as our columnist Matthew d’Ancona writes today , that title raises a question: “becoming what?”

Ms Obama has said very firmly that she doesn’t want to run for office and there’s every reason to believe her — except that in politics there’s a pattern of people saying they don’t plan to stand until they do. Maybe she’ll be an exception. She certainly doesn’t seem to miss the White House. But what counts now is that she’s written a serious and important book.

She is making the case for the America she wants to bring about through reason and argument as well as passion.

There are lessons for leaders on both sides of the Atlantic in that.

Michelle Obama - In pictures

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Pizza plot’s secret recipe

Have you noticed the new routine developing in British politics?

Each week, the Prime Minister almost brings the outline of a Brexit deal to the Cabinet — but, as at this morning’s meeting, doesn’t quite get there. And each week Brexiteer ministers are said to meet the night before to talk about why they really, really don’t like it, over pizza in someone’s office.

We haven’t been told what the toppings are. Or who carries the congealing slices past the security scanners and into Parliament.

But the oddest thing of all is why these purportedly patriotic Brexiteers want to define themselves around a dish which was invented in a southern Italian city.

Perhaps they lack imagination to find something more traditionally British. Or perhaps they just can’t cook.

Either way, they are reaping the benefits of a close and open relationship with European cuisine. There’s surely a lesson for them in that.

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