The EU's open borders policy has put us more, not less, at risk from criminals and terrorists. The open borders policy has meant that Europe's criminals have migrated to where they think they can most lucratively operate, and that means countries like Britain. The EU's Freedom of Movement Directive (Directive 2004/38, Article 27/2) says that: 'previous criminal convictions are not enough to justify exclusion'. So even if we know someone to be a convicted criminal, we have no power to prevent his or her entry to our country. We have seen convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles come from Europe to the UK and then commit more appalling crimes over here.

Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe revealed recently that 29% of the Met Police's 250,000 arrests in a year were of foreign nationals (admittedly, not all being EU citizens), but of these, only 13% resulted in a charge or summons. The excuse for not being able to bring them to justice was because it was not possible to check their DNA, fingerprints or previous convictions, and so they were released.

Open borders also aid terrorists. We have seen terrorist attacks in a number of European capitals made by terrorists who can easily cross borders under the EU's Schengen open borders system. Britain is not in Schengen, but any EU citizen has the right to come to Britain if he or she so wishes. Europe has plenty of its own home-grown terrorists who have free access to the UK, but we also saw how, in the Paris attacks of November 2015, at least one of the murderous terrorists was operating on a forged passport. Whenever these terrorist attacks occur, the EU uses the act as an excuse to call for yet more power over police and judicial matters, and to create or enlarge the EU's own security and intelligence services.

Writing in the magazine Prospect, MI6's former head (1999-2004), Sir Richard Dearlove, made it clear that Britain would be safer outside of the EU. He stated that leaving the EU would make it easier to deport terrorists and control our borders. He added that Europe would not turn its back on Britain or our intelligence services, because "Britain is Europe's leader in intelligence, and its security services give much more than they get in return".

When the UK is out of the EU, the organised crime and terrorist threat would not go away. But then we would be free to control our own borders, and we could continue, as we have always done, to share our intelligence with our allies. But allowing our intelligence services to be merged with an EU intelligence service would be a tremendous mistake.