Westcountry Conservative MPs have backed a campaign demanding that police powers be clawed back from Brussels.

In the Prime Minister’s latest stand-off with Tory backbenchers over the EU, more than 100 MPs want Britain to pull out of a raft of measures such as the European arrest warrant.

Their call came after the Open Europe think-tank suggested last week that the Government faced a “one-off opportunity” to repatriate 130 EU laws on crime and policing.

A provision in the Lisbon Treaty means ministers must decide before June 2014 whether the entire package should continue to apply to the UK, it claimed.

Six Conservative MPs representing Devon and Cornwall have signed a letter calling for the powers to be repatriated.

George Eustice, MP for Camborne and Redruth, said: “Ultimate authority on justice and home affairs policy should rest at home in the UK.

“The Government must signal its early intention to jettison this entire package of new EU laws and then negotiate cross-border co-operation on our own terms, only in limited areas where the case has been made.”

Anne Marie Morris, MP for Newton Abbot, said Britain should “continuously examine” the powers held by the EU and “ask ourselves whether it is in fact right and proper for them to instead be exercised at a national level”.

“In this instance, I believe we should take back control of matters relating to crime and policing policy and I was therefore more than happy to join many colleagues in signing this letter,” she went on.

Sheryll Murray, MP for South East Cornwall, said: “Crime and policing should be matters for nation states. We are not a United States of Europe.”

Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth), Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) and Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) are also signatories.

The MPs, including former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis and the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee Graham Brady, said the Open Europe report offered a “pragmatic alternative” to European Commission plans for “a pan-European code of Euro Crimes”.

Declining to sign up would still leave open the option to opt back in to any individual element deemed vital on a case-by-case basis, they wrote.

“We need practical co-operation to fight terrorism, drugs, human trafficking and other cross border crimes – not harmonisation of national criminal laws.

“We do not wish to subordinate UK authorities to a pan-European Public Prosecutor.

“We do not want to see British police forces subjected to mandatory demands by European police under the European Investigation Order.

“We have deep concerns about the operation of the European Arrest Warrant for our citizens.

“We want the UK Supreme Court to have the last word on UK crime and policing, not the European Court of Justice.”

Britain’s long-standing intelligence relations with the US showed the UK did “not have to cede democratic control with close partners in order to co-operate effectively with them.

“We should maintain our national standards of justice and democratic control over crime and policing – but let other nations integrate more closely if they wish.”

The letter is the latest example of unease among Eurosceptic Tory backbenchers. In October, 79 Conservative MPs defied David Cameron and voted in favour of a referendum on EU membership. Five MPs from Devon and Cornwall joined the mutiny – the worst rebellion over Europe in Conservative history.

The Prime Minister curried favour after dramatically blocking a deal to create a powerful “fiscal union” in Europe, but has since been criticised even by his own party for wielding a “phantom” veto.

MPs also want a delay in bringing in new rights for temporary workers, complying with an EU directive, which the British Chambers of Commerce says will cost businesses £1.5 billion a year.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “The Government will be looking closely at these laws and whether they benefit Britain before making a decision about whether to opt in. In taking any decision, we will act in the national interest.”