is doubtless how this will be pitched by some of the more rabid on the Eurosceptic side, who are always happy to distort any positive EU news. And I can think of little that isn’t positive in using some of the EU’s fund to help the victims of terrorism to aid a family in their quest to track down their relative’s killers.

By offering to help fund any civil action the McCartney sisters may take against members of Sinn Fein or the IRA suspected of involvement in their brother’s murder, the European Parliament (for it was our elected officials, not the so-called Eurocrats – although this distinction often seems to be missed in certain quarters) could help not only avoid the need for direct British funding but also put even greater international pressure on Sinn Fein and especially the IRA.

Considering the high profile the McCartneys have managed to build, any court case would already have drawn interest, but now the attention of the whole of the EU will be caught up in it, as it is EU money funding this campaign against terrorists. They may not be the popular, dusky-skinned, desert-dwelling sort, and the murder may have been in a bar fight rather than a suicide bombing, but make no mistake, they are terrorists nonetheless.

This will, of course, at once be a long-overdue EU action on the Northern Irish situation at a critical time (now that the hardliners of both sides have increased their seats in the general election) and a handy bail-out for the UK justice system which may otherwise have ended up footing the entire bill. But I’m sure someone from the anti-EU camp will be up for trying to spin this to the EU’s disadvantage anyway.

Either that, or they’ll ignore it – just as the voters did the anti-EU parties on Thursday.

Wednesday Update: Sure enough, the ever-reliable Richard North of EU Referendum has tried to spin this against the EU – apparently the activities of a trans-national terrorist organisation based within one of the EU’s member states is “none of its business”. Genius. (Link fixed)

Wednesday update 2: Missed this – eurosceptic North Sea Diaries also has an anti spin, albeit a slightly more reasonable one – arguing that separation of powers should prevent the European parliament from meddling with the judicial process. This is actually almost a fair point – although it somewhat ignores the fact that the UK system doesn’t actually have separation of powers, and seems to impy that a judge is going to be swayed by knowledge of where the funding of a civil action is coming from. This in turn implies that there should really be no state funding for any legal case lest the implicit support government money would suggest also affect due process… Still – a good effort…