It will be harder for Britain to fight terrorism out of the EU, Rob Wainwright director of Europol tells #newsnighthttps://t.co/a7jIGWa86C

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) February 8, 2016

Dave’s scaremongering got even sillier yesterday when he claimed Brexit would mean Britain loses intel on “terrorists running around Europe”. Last night the director of Europol, Rob Wainwright, joined in, claiming Britain would be “much less effective” at fighting terrorism if we left the EU. Really?

Europol says on its website that

“because organised crime does not stop at international borders, it is also essential to have cooperation initiatives with non-EU countries”

16 years ago, the EU authorised the director of Europol to enter into negotiations on cooperation agreements with non-EU states. Today, Europol has operational agreements with 14 non-EU countries:

Albania, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Macedonia, Iceland, Moldova, Montenegro, 
Norway, Republic of Serbia, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco and the United States.

It even has strategic agreements in place with Bosnia & Herzegovina, Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukraine.

Why would Europol share information on terrorists with these non-EU countries and not Brexit Britain?

The greatest threat to our national security is posed by teenage sexting apps such as Snapchat and WhatsApp according to the Director of Europol. Rob Wainwright, the ex-MI5 spook who now heads up the EU’s pet police force, told Radio 5 Live yesterday that encrypted communication applications offered by major software providers are “the biggest problem” for police and spooks “dealing with threats from terrorism“.

Wainwright then went on to blame the popularity of sexting apps on Edward Snowden, whose revelations appareantly caused software companies to cater for “what they perceive to be consumer demand for greater privacy of their communications.“ Or maybe people don’t want Mr Wainwright snooping on their saucy pics..