The government is right to turn its back on the European Court of Justice

A key question in the Brexit talks is how any deal between the EU and UK will be upheld. The government has begun to address this today, publishing a paper on enforcement and dispute resolution. One thing is clear: ministers are committed to extricating the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In fact, the main point of the paper could be summed up as spelling out why Britain cannot agree to the ECJ being the arbiter of any Brexit deal. The government is entirely right about this. Sovereign states do not and should not enter into agreements in which the meaning and effect of the agreement is settled by the courts of the other party. The reason is obvious: one party would be at the mercy of the other. What’s more, the ECJ is no neutral arbiter, and its record is hardly one of dispassionate law application.