It’s rich

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There is something curious happening on the political scene inn Brussels. There always is? Well this gets curiouser and curiouser. The news this week that the Conservatives are to break their alliance with the European Peoples Party (EPP) is old news. We reported months ago that Joseph Daul the EPP chairman had been summoned to London for  lunch with David Cameron and William Hague to be told the Conservatives were leaving. Since then it has been common gossip  around the portals.

What is more curious is the continuing association between the Conservatives, Jens Peter-Bonde’s European Democrats and – unbelievably – Declan Ganley’s Libertas under the umbrella ‘Freedom Association’.

Now what makes things curiouser and curiouser is that Libertas is campaigning across Europe on virtually the same manifesto as the Conservatives, namely reform and transparency. The Conservative want EU Reform and the transfer of certain powers to nation states.

Jens Peter Bonde the former President (Chair) of  the European Parliament’s Independence and Democracy Group has always been a eurosceptic running on a similar agenda. Only UKIP and some fringe east Europe parties have been calling for withdrawal. It has been far from apparent that UKIP has been welcome at Freedom Association meetings. Meanwhile Jens Peter has become a political advisor to Declan Ganley.

On the never to  be missed BBC Newsnight  programme came a report this week questioning whether the Conservatives would be left alone with no choice but  to link up  with a bunch of mad extremists. No came the Conservative response “we can happily sit on our own and wield more influence than we have in the EPP”.

No one can predict what the election outcome will be in the UK. UKIP looks  like a lost  cause if only because withdrawal in the middle of an economic crisis looks about as sensible as the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

One has to look a bit further: one well known news source in Brussels appears to have become entirely dedicated to the Libertas cause. Well known journalists appear to be ‘sympathetic’ to the reformist right represented by the members from various parties of the Freedom Association.

We know well of dinners, meetings and cross party friendships among individuals of like mind. Since groupings in the European Parliament exist to garner enormous sums of taxpayers money it is not going too far to suggest that the Conservatives for reasons of practicality would sit in a grouping with Libertas.

One thing that the electorate can be sure of is that when it comes to grabbing the dosh in Brussels party principles take a back seat on the gravy train.