A European Directive which came into force days ago prevents Charles Clarke, British Home Secretary, from fulfilling his pledge to deport foreign convicts. UKIP Leader Roger Knapman (UKIP is the United Kindgom Independence Party) said that automatic deportation for EU nationals convicted of criminal offences in the UK are specifically prohibited by EU Directive 2004/38, which states that ‘Expulsion orders may not be issued by the host Member State as a penalty or legal consequence of a custodial penalty’. Mr Knapman said that article 33 of the directive prevented the automatic removal of those convicted of offences, and whilst it did allow for deportation as a sanction, the blanket use of deportation orders was prohibited by the Directive, which specifically states 'Justifications that are isolated from the particulars of the case or that rely on considerations of general prevention shall not be accepted'. The Directive came into force on the 30th April 2006. Mr Knapman said, 'From the original list of 1,023 foreign nationals who were released without deportation, 133, or 13%, were EU nationals and therefore exempt from deportation. Of the remainder, any who were married to British or other EU nationals were also exempt under the same directive. 'For all Charles Clarke’s bluster, he simply can not fulfil his promise to Parliament to ensure foreign nationals serve their sentences in their home nation as a direct result of an EU Directive which his government signed us up to and which came into force less than a week ago. What more damning indictment is there of the extent of the powers which have been signed away? 'It is unfortunate in the extreme that all of the main political parties are desperate to not talk about Europe or the scale of the surrender of national powers. Tub thumping speeches by David Cameron and Sir Menzies Campbell are as empty and as worthless as the Home Secretary’s assurances.' The article in question is Article 33, with the conditions for deportation listed in articles 27, 28 and 29. Article 27 specifically states that deportation can not be an automatic consequence of conviction. Of the 1,023 prisoners released, according to Home Office figures released last week, 133 (13%) were EU nationals. There is no breakdown for the number of the remainder who are married to EU nationals and therefore similarly exempt.