Racists may plague Tory Europe group

[muriel_volestrangler]

The Tory leader insists he will not be aligning his party's 25 MEPs with extremists. But he has angered Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, by walking out of the mainstream centre-right EPP group, the largest in the parliament, to form a new group of conservative Eurosceptics. It is expected to include the Belgian Lijst Dedecker party, some of whose politicians are former members of the far-right Vlaams Belang part, whose candidates backed a statement saying: "We urgently need global chemotherapy against Islam to save civilisation", and used campaigning material featuring an ape with the words "I have not forgotten my roots ... have you?"

The Tories are also in talks with the Dutch Christian Union, which includes the SGP, a Calvinist party which believes the Bible means that women should not stand for parliament but have a "nurturing role" at home. Mr Cameron's party is also wooing the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom party, several of whose MPs marched in Riga with veterans of the Latvian SS in March.
...
The 25 Tories will be the biggest national team in the new group. Its other prominent members will be the Polish Law and Justice Party, which has 15 MEPs, and the Czech Civic Democrats, which has nine. The Polish party, headed by the controversial Kaczynski twins, is anti-gay, and banned gay-rights processions. In talks on EU voting power, it demanded that Poland's losses at the hands of Hitler be added to its current population so it would have more clout.

The Civic Democrats, one of whose leaders has dismissed climate change as a myth, backed the Lisbon Treaty, which the Tories oppose. Some potential allies also want to include far-right parties such as Italy's xenophobic Northern League, although the Tories will try to block this.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/racists-may-plague-tory-europe-group-1710729.html

I thought the whole point of the Tories leaving the EPP was that the didn't want to ally with the centre-right like Sarkozy and Merkel who support the Lisbon treaty? So instead they ally with people further to the right, who still support the Lisbon treaty? :crazy:

I guess, in the end, it's about being the top dog in any alliance. Cameron and the Tories don't like being seen as controlled by Sarkozy and Merkel.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

1. it's an interesting prelude to how a Tory government will deal with Europe

The Major government's dealings with Europe were paralysed by its right-wing, and the right-Eurosceptic philosophy is reasserting itself once again for a Tory Party in power.

It makes me wonder how the City will react to this. The perceived business benefits of Eurointegration and the increasing neoliberalisation of EU institutions has made the European project more attractive to them. This brings to mind a potential rift between a Tory government and its natural City ally.

Cameron either must cave in to the Tory right like Hague, IDS and Howard had to, or he'd have to enforce his will (like a Thatcher or Blair) on the Party by putting the City's interests first. Either way, it's a bumpy ride for him.

[non sociopath skin]

4. And a nice mealy-mouthed response from the Torygraph

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/06/22/conservatives_and_the_epp_the_apology_you_wont_be_reading_in_tomorrows_press

Looks like they're on board with the bigots and homophobes.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

2. Ye gods. What lovely company to be in.

[TheBigotBasher]

3. The European Union makes for many strange bed felllows

that do not agree on specific internal policy items. Otherwise you would be suggesting that Gordon Brown and the Labour Party agrees with Martin Schulz who accused the Dutch Prime Minister of being a Nazi for simply suggesting more EU Nations should have had referenda on Lisbon. Or are you implying that the Labour Party agrees with the Theo-Dems inside the Italian "Democratic Left", who are very strongly anti immigration, anti abortion and want heavy restrictions on artificial insemination.

Nor would the Labour feel completely at home with some of the Communist members of the PES.

The new Conservative Alliance does not exclude the Conservative Party from working with or voting with the EPP. It simply highlights that there is a difference inside the EU Parliament between The European Socialist Movement and the EPP, who both want to drive further with integration and those Parties that do not.

Its declaration is however a load of wishy washy hope in a boat nonsense. However, that can also be said of the PES joint manifesto and declaration.

THE PRAGUE DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE EUROPEAN CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS GROUP IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

CONSCIOUS OF THE URGENT NEED TO REFORM THE EU ON THE BASIS OF EUROREALISM, OPENNESS, ACCOUNTABILITY AND DEMOCRACY, IN A WAY THAT RESPECTS THE SOVEREIGNTY OF OUR NATIONS AND CONCENTRATES ON ECONOMIC RECOVERY, GROWTH AND COMPETITIVENESS, THE EUROPEAN CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS GROUP SHARES THE
FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES:

1. Free enterprise, free and fair trade and competition, minimal regulation, lower taxation, and small government as the ultimate catalysts for individual freedom and personal and national prosperity.
2. Freedom of the individual, more personal responsibility and greater democratic accountability.
3. Sustainable, clean energy supply with an emphasis on energy security.
4. The importance of the family as the bedrock of society.
5. The sovereign integrity of the nation state, opposition to EU federalism and a renewed respect for true subsidiarity.
6. The overriding value of the transatlantic security relationship in a revitalised NATO, and support for young democracies across Europe.
7. Effectively controlled immigration and an end to abuse of asylum procedures
8. Efficient and modern public services and sensitivity to the needs of both rural and urban communities.
9. An end to waste and excessive bureaucracy and a commitment to greater transparency and probity in the EU institutions and use of EU funds.
10. Respect and equitable treatment for all EU countries, new and old, large and small.

I personally think that this owes far more to keeping the Party troops quiet at home, so that they do not react like lunatics with free run of the asylum whenever the EPP publishes some mad briefing, than where they place their vote on critical issues (not that the EU Parliament ever gets to vote on critical issues). Thus killing off the single biggest issue that destroyed the Major Government.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

5. "Communist members of the PES"

Are there any?

[TheBigotBasher]

6. None that are Marxist or Leninist.

In fact those that do remain should make Labour MEPS (not the New Labour ones) even more uncomfortable, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (the ex Communist Party of Bulgaria) is now made up of a bunch of loony Neo-Cons, whose last big campaign was for a flat tax.