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Improve Cooperation with Europe on Cross-Border Crime

Liberal Democrat · what the evidence says

An independent, source-checked look at Liberal Democrat’s policy “Improve Cooperation with Europe on Cross-Border Crime” — what it would actually do across the things that affect your life. Every claim below quotes the source behind it. How this works.

Personal liberty & free speech — Little effect

minor · low confidence

This policy is mainly about catching criminals across borders, so its direct effect on ordinary people's privacy and liberty is very small. The main caveat is that expanded police database access does mean more individuals' records circulate across borders, but this targets people already in criminal justice systems, not the general public.

The evidence

Biggest unknown: Whether restored access to EU-wide databases (SIS II, ECRIS) would in practice sweep up innocent individuals through false positives or data errors at a scale that meaningfully affects ordinary people's freedom of movement.

Our reading: O10 is the home for negative liberty — state coercion, surveillance, and privacy intrusions that affect ordinary people. This policy primarily expands law enforcement data-sharing tools aimed at identified or suspected criminals (wanted persons, those with criminal records). The databases in scope — SIS II, ECRIS — are targeted criminal justice instruments, not mass surveillance infrastructure covering the general population. There is therefore no direct mechanism by which the policy expands coercive state reach over the speech, bodies, or choices of ordinary people going about their lives. The marginal O10 concern is indirect: restoring 40,000-plus database alerts means more individuals (including potentially those wrongly flagged) could be subject to border stops or law-enforcement attention on the basis of EU-held data. That is a real, if narrow, liberty consideration. However, the provided evidence does not establish that this effect would be material at population scale; the systems are designed for targeted criminal justice use, not general monitoring. The EU's stated position that full SIS II access is legally unavailable to non-members further limits the realistic scope of the policy. The data adequacy constraint (E13) adds uncertainty — but it cuts both ways, since it is partly a data-protection safeguard rather than a pure liberty threat. On balance, the O10 impact is real but below the threshold that would justify 'worsens' at any meaningful magnitude — hence negligible/minor. The direction is set to negligible; magnitude is recorded as minor to flag the non-zero but sub-material privacy dimension, with low confidence given the evidence does not directly measure O10 outcomes.

Crime, justice & national security — Helps

moderate · moderate confidence

Restoring real-time data sharing and closer Europol/Eurojust ties would meaningfully improve the UK's ability to catch traffickers, terrorists, and organised criminals — but the EU has indicated full SIS II access may be legally impossible for non-members, so the actual gains depend heavily on what is negotiated.

The evidence

Biggest unknown: Whether the EU will grant direct real-time database access to a non-Schengen, non-EU country — the EU has previously stated this is legally impossible, which caps how much of the policy's stated ambition can be delivered.

Our reading: The baseline is clear: Brexit caused a material degradation in the UK's law-enforcement capability — 40,000 suspect alerts deleted, loss of automated SIS II access replaced by slower Interpol notices, loss of JIT leadership, and reduced Europol data exchange. The UK pre-Brexit was a dominant contributor (up to 40% of data traffic) and heavy beneficiary of these systems. The operational cost of the current arrangements is evidenced by parliamentary scrutiny and expert warnings that organised crime is harder to prosecute as a result. The policy directly targets these gaps by seeking to restore real-time database access and closer Europol/Eurojust integration. Projected benefits — faster arrest of traffickers and terrorists, restored JIT leadership, improved intelligence — are plausible and tied to evidenced pre-Brexit capabilities. The counterfactual (no policy) is continued reliance on the slower, resource-intensive Interpol model with fragile bilateral relationships. The main constraint is legal and political: the EU has previously said direct SIS II access for non-Schengen non-members is not legally available. This means the policy's most ambitious element — real-time access — may be undeliverable in full, likely reducing the gain to a partial improvement through negotiated specific arrangements (as with Prüm). On balance, even partial restoration of data-sharing and JIT capability would represent a meaningful improvement to O5 relative to the current degraded baseline, but the magnitude is capped by EU-side constraints and diplomatic uncertainty, making this a moderate rather than major improvement with a long-term delivery horizon.

Immigration & border control — Moves toward more control

We don’t call this better or worse — that’s your call; we only show which way the policy moves it.

moderate · moderate confidence

This policy aims to tighten law enforcement cooperation with the EU to better detect and stop cross-border crime including human trafficking — moving border control in a more enforcement-focused direction. The main caveat is that the EU has previously said full real-time database access for non-EU members may not be legally possible.

The evidence

Biggest unknown: Whether the EU will agree to restore direct real-time access to systems like SIS II, which it has previously indicated is legally unavailable to non-Schengen, non-EU members.

Our reading: The policy is focused on enforcement cooperation — detecting and apprehending traffickers, terrorists and other criminals moving across borders. By seeking to restore real-time data access and joint operational capacity lost post-Brexit, it moves border control toward a more enforcement-intensive, controlled posture. To the extent it succeeds in disrupting smuggling networks, it would tend to lower irregular migration. The direction of shift is toward more controlled, but the magnitude is moderated by genuine legal uncertainty about whether the EU can grant the level of access requested.

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