In the past the UK has often adopted a selective approach to the application of EU law.

Roger Smith looks at the central tenets that make up the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and evaluates how pragmatic it is for British law to implement its precepts

There is something in British political and legal culture that does not particularly care for declaratory charters, is ambiguous about the idea of rights, and exudes downright scepticism of the EU.

So, it is unsurprising that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights gets a bad press from many common law lawyers and politicians alike.

Keith Vaz MP, Minister of Europe at the time, famously said that it had as much value as the Beano or The Sun.

It is surely time for a more subtle analysis.

It is worth reading the charter.

It summarises the European convention and the other international conventions and European social charters that member states of the union have already signed.

Therefore, article 2 reads: 'Everyone has the right to life.

No one shall be condemned to the death penalty.' This brings together the current second article of the European convention and article 1 of the sixth protocol that was agreed at a later date.

The result is a clearer text that would make more sense to, for example, a school class studying citizenship.

Some effort has gone into meeting the obvious criticisms of using different words to restate existing obligations.

The articles of the charter come together with 'explanations' that indicate their source.

Additionally, the new constitution, if ever approved, will grant the union legal personality and, thus, allow it to sign up to the European convention itself.

That should yoke the two jurisdictions together and remove any potential rivalry of the two courts - the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice.

In some regards, the charter goes further than the European convention, even in relation to civil and political rights.

For example, as originally drafted the convention required non-discrimination only in relation to convention rights.

There was no blanket requirement of equality.

There is now a protocol that would advance such a right - protocol 12.

However, the UK government has not yet signed it.

The charter contains a blanket condemnation of discrimination of an exemplary kind: 'Any discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.'

It is the 'solidarity' rights that cause inordinate trouble for English politicians in a post-Thatcher age.

The charter includes such outrageous provisions as a right for workers to 'be guaranteed information and consultation in good time'.

Even worse, there are rights to 'collective action ...

including strike action'.

Here are some red-flag - let alone red-line - issues for many a Eurosceptic.

However, such provisions are explicitly subject to 'national laws and practices'.

Community legislation might override this, but only where it so provides.

We should be able to sleep soundly in our beds with very much the same benighted legislation as we currently have.

The charter does include some general admonitions that sound rhetorical to a common law lawyer.

For example, what does one make of a right to 'a high level of environmental protection and improvement of the quality of the environment' or of the right 'of access to preventative health care'? Such rights are often framed as subject to 'national laws and practices' or are general principles that the charter itself distinguishes from rights.

A principle does not, of itself, require the community or a member state to take action, but if action is taken it provides guidance in how it should be implemented.

In terms of protection against too great an invasion against our national sovereignty, the charter is not a freestanding document.

It is incorporated within the European constitution and embellishes the founding values set out in the constitution's second article 'respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights'.

These illustrate the values that the union will apply in its dual aim of creating a single market and 'an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers'.

However, the charter applies only to the institutions of the EU and to member states when implementing union law.

Most of the obvious objections have been addressed.

The practical value of the charter will be very much dependent on the good sense of the judges, both domestic and European.

There is every sign that they are approaching the task appropriately at the current time, when the charter is not binding.

At least two High Court judges, Mr Justice Moses and Mr Justice Maurice Kay, have referred to it in perfectly satisfactory judgments - though both took care to note that it was 'not a source of law as such'.

So, let us at least consider the possibility that the charter represents a workable and accessible summary of human rights obligations, the effects of which will, in time, permeate the EU.

After all, in the early days, even the now sacred text of the European convention was regarded of more use for continental Europe than for the UK by the English politicians and lawyers who contributed so much to its drafting.

Roger Smith is the director of the human rights campaigning group Justice