A British Bill of Rights would protect our liberty

David Cameron struggles to repatriate powers from Brussels. Yet Britain can reclaim one sovereign power without negotiation. Other EU members never relinquished the right to say ‘non’, ‘nein’, ‘oxi’ to European law that violates the constitution. Should Britain do the same? Italy and Germany’s Constitutional Courts first set constitutional limits to EU law in the 1970s. The Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice was not amused. It recently raged against the Spanish Constitutional Court which had the chutzpah to say the European Arrest Warrant might violate due process. ‘Rules of national law, even of a constitutional order cannot … undermine the effectiveness of EU law,’ thundered the Luxembourg judges. European judges putting EU law’s effectiveness above liberty will surprise no one in Britain. National judges’ resistance to this illiberal hubris probably will. Czech, Portuguese, Estonian, French, Polish judges insist that, even after the Lisbon Treaty, national constitutions prevail over EU law, raising perhaps the possibility that Europeans might unite against the EU rather than thanks to it.