Be Judged By Your Friends....
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
More importantly Labour’s former Europe Minister Denis McShane clearly implied, Monday night, that the Conservative’s presence in the new European Conservative and Reformist Group (ECR) is already shaming Britain and he urged them to “quit and sit as independents”.
The programme ran a shock news report detailing how the Polish leader of the ECR Michel Kaminsky refused to attend a ceremony where the Polish government of the day apologised for the massacre of Jews by Poles and afterwards made anti-Jewish statements.
It carried an interview in which it was said that Kaminski made “comments reminiscent of the Nazis” that immigrants “bring disease” and called for them to be expelled as late as 1993.
Curiously neither Conservative leader David Cameron nor Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague were available to take part in the programme despite Mr Hague being seen a short distance away in the House of Commons by Denis McShane immediately before the programme.
Instead of a studio debate the Conservative response came from hard line right-winger and architect of the Conservative move from the mainstream centre right EPP Group Daniel Hannan speaking from Strasbourg. Hannan is widely regarded as a United Kingdom Independence Party fellow traveller.
Hannan rebuffed McShane’s reference to MEP Edward McMillan-Scott saying he “has left the party”. Almost inaudibly show host Jeremy Paxman said “he was expelled”. McMillan-Scott now sits as a conservative (small c) independent and is a Vice President of the European Parliament.
McMillan-Scott, who has refused to comment, is facing a hearing into his dismissal for standing for Vice President against Michel Kaminski who managed only six votes from his own Polish national delegation and lost.
McMillan-Scott first lost the party whip and was then dismissed for defying David Cameron’s order not to stand against Kaminski. The bureau of the parliament tell EU Reporter that they are actively seeking proof that the order was given as it would be a serious breach of article 2 of the Members Statute stating that MEPs are independent and forbidding members to allow themselves to accept orders or pressure.
The bureau and parliament generally are concerned that votes on key issues, such as media independence, have been influenced by outside pressure particularly from industry lobbies. “We would welcome an inquiry”, bureau member the Liberal Democrat Bill Newton Dunn told EU Reporter.
Both Liberal Democrat and British Labour MEPs say that the expulsion of Edward McMillan Scott raises the question of whether the Conservative leadership in Britain “is fit for purpose”.
More importantly, the heavily German Christian Democrat EPP says that they are determined to isolate the ECR and its British Conservative members. In this they are joined by the Liberals, Greens and, of course, Socialists.
“There is a clear and concerted effort to ensure that the ECR has no influence and is rendered ineffective,” a senior official told EU Reporter.
This translates, as Newsnight has demonstrated, into a serious political and economic issue for the UK. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy are both wooing and winning Barack Obama’s administration across what they like to call “a new Atlantic Bridge”.
Again, according to EPP insiders, there is a determination to ensure that should David Cameron be elected he will be denied access to Franco-German pre-summit meetings and will have little influence over the political and economic might of the Franco-German alliance. This translates into very little influence in Europe.
Conservative MEPs repeatedly parrot the official line that Edward McMillan-Scott is guilty of ‘treachery”. Yet he has not stood against a Conservative and is unique in the party’s history for being expelled, albeit for standing against a foreigner whose background he troubled to investigate.
William Hague accused McMillan-Scott of campaigning against Kaminski “on superficial research” yet it took an EU Reporter only two hours to come up with similar material to that broadcast on Newsnight and much more.
The whole of Europe and the American administration is now asking whether the Conservative leadership is fit for purpose. "The day of reckoning approaches," a senior Labour MEP told EU Reporter today.
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