He added: "If a business manufacturing goods in the UK wants to export goods to the EU, as hundreds of them do, then those goods must comply with EU standards. As a practical matter, if you're manufacturing wedding cakes, for example, and you have to comply with EU food standards, you don't want to have to create two sets of wedding cake. You want to create one set to come off the production line so the cakes can be consumed both in the UK and the EU. [...]
"We will not have truly left the European Union if we are not in control of our own laws," the prime minister declared in her keynote Lancaster House speech in January.
However, for Sir David, it is not just May's unrealistic promises regarding the ECJ that have left him frustrated, but signs that both she and the government don't fully understand its purpose and remit. "The ECJ does not have 'direct jurisdiction' in or over the UK," the former ECJ judge tells BI. [...]
He continues: "They [ministers] use expressions like the ECJ can 'enforce' EU law or can 'direct' the UK — but it can't do any such thing. All it can do is say what the law is. The great thing about EU law is it doesn't have any police and enforcement is entirely by consent."
He says the only exception to this is in the "very rare case" of the ECJ fining an EU member state for repeatedly failing to comply with EU law. "It's happened with Greece when it was dumping hospital waste in a stream in Crete. They were told to stop it and they didn't and eventually the Court imposed a penalty on them for every day they failed to deal with the dumping of waste," Sir David explained. "But that's a very remote thing from us [the UK]."
"It's just ignorant," he adds. "The idea that the ECJ is a body like the US Supreme Court that can strike down legislation of states is just false.
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