After MPs yesterday voted in favour of maintaining a ban which prevents prisoners from voting, the Express' headline today proclaimed 'Britain in the EU: this must be the end'.

The Express labels this as 'the moment of defiance', before going on to state that 'after decades of submitting to EU institutions' this was being seen as a 'turning point in the battle for British independence from European edicts, judges and bureaucracy'.

It seems that the Express have inculcated a habit of confusing the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with the institutions of the European Union.

In a previous fact-check of claims made in the Express' 'Get Britain out of the EU' supplement, we stressed not only that the Court is not an EU institution but that membership of the EU does not formally require us to be signatories of the European Convention on Human Rights which, incidentally, is not an EU treaty.

Despite the absence of a legal link, in a practical sense the relationship between the ECtHR and the EU itself does require that member states ensure their legal and judicial institutions guarantee the protection of those human rights set out in the convention, including that which decrees prisoners should be given the vote. Failure to implement this ruling is indeed a breach of its obligations to the Court, a breach of the rule of law as Attorney General Dominic Grieve stated.

However, MP David Davis who proposed the motion argued in yesterday's debate that when someone commits a crime serious enough to warrant a prison sentence, they forego rights and liberties such as freedom of association (also guaranteed by the European convention) as well as the right to vote.

The Express, it seems, are subsuming this act of defiance by MPs to oppose the court's ruling as an act of defiance against the European Union, an issue separate from these concerns expressed about the extent of the European court's legal jurisdiction, one that is in itself still awaiting further debate and deliberation.