Met Police Commissioner warns that no-deal Brexit will put public at risk
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Britain’s most senior police officer has stormed into a political row by suggesting a no-deal Brexit could put the public at risk.
Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said crashing out of the EU without an agreement would mean having to replace certain structures, such as access to databases and agreements on arrest and extradition, which could threaten the police’s crime-fighting capability.
“We will have to replace some of the things we currently use in terms of access to databases, the way in which we can quickly extradite and arrest people … [We will] have to replace them as effectively as we can, but it will be more costly, slower and potentially put [the] public at risk … There is no doubt about that. This is one of many things politicians deciding what to do need to be thinking about,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday.
Her comments delighted Remainers but incensed Brexiteers with a warning about the UK losing access to European intelligence.
Former Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she was right to warn that security was at risk. But UKIP’s leader Gerard Batten said free movement of people meant free movement of criminals.
