Attack and Retreat, Bait and Switch: Tory Policy on Europe

The Conservatives are always ready to implode over the continent. It’s a testament to David Cameron’s political skill/luck that he has specifically been able to avoid mention of Europe, keeping the focus of the debate on “I’m not Gordon Brown.” The Tory Party Political Broadcast was ‘scrapped’ (I’m not sure if they even made one because they could have unleashed it on an unsuspecting YouTube) so that DC could talk about expenses and pull the rug from under Brown.

With major Tory donors like Stuart Wheeler, who wrote a cheque for £100,000 to UKIP and said he will be voting for them, I can appreciate the tightrope DC is walking. However, though the general agreement is for ‘everybody to keep quiet until we’re in power’, they do actually have a policy on Europe.

The policy has been to leave the EPP-ED. David Cameron won the leadership election on this promise; it’s taken a few years, but been delivered.

Consider the following video, (it’s a bit cheesy, but makes a good point). The policies are pretty clear: “Support and Reform” or “Attack and Retreat”.

This is the great deception, as they are still running as part of the EPP-ED, but will leave after the election to form a new group. It’s voting for a candidate who is going to switch parties in the future. The manifesto agreed upon and voted for will be forgotten. (You may wish to point out something along the lines of “Manifesto? None of them keep their promises.” Consider yourself pre-empted.)

Let’s look at how the system works:

This graph shows what it says it does. It’s the political build-up of the European Parliament, where national parties group together based on ideology. MEPs are expected to act in the interests of their political nature rather than political party at home.

You’ll notice the two biggest groups are the EPP-ED and the PES. The Conservatives are currently found in the former with other Conservative and Christian Democrats and the Labour Party sits in the latter with fellow Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists. The Liberal Democrats are in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats. Greens with the Greens and so on.

The EPP-ED is therefore the ‘mainstream’ group where all the serious centre-right parties sit. This will no longer include the British Conservative Party, who have decided to leave their natural European Party for being too pro-European. (They will say pro-Federalist to suggest the EU is going to become a superstate. I’ve just done an exam on why this is impossible and complete twaddle, so I’m not going to explain it. Trust me on this one.)

As a result of the gagging-order on Tories when it comes to Europe, we have very little idea on what lines this new group will take. It has been said that they are looking to seek relations with the Polish Law and Justice party as well as a Czech Party.

From the Telegraph:

Its critics regard the party as homophobic owing to both the Kaczynski’s apparent opposition to gay rights. When Warsaw mayor, Lech, who is now Poland’s president, banned a succession of gay pride marches, while his brother said homosexuality would lead to the “downfall of civilisation”.

And the Guardian:

“If you think that David Cameron has an alliance with PiS, you could really say that Cameron has an alliance with Father Rydzyk,” said Olgierd Annusewicz, a Warsaw University political scientist. “Rydzyk is a guy who is against Jews, against homosexuals, against all liberal thinking, against privatisation.”

On Newsnight last night, William Hague, Shadow Foreign Secretary, brushed off these claims by putting it down to “differences in national political culture.”

The only result of this rag-tag mob of anti-gay, Climate Change denyng looneys getting together will be that Britain will be embarrassed and ignored by ‘Europe’ under a Conservative government. Don’t take it from me, take it from one of their MEPs, Caroline Jackson:

David Cameron’s decision on the EPP is pathetic and will sow the seeds of endless trouble. It will leave David Cameron and William Hague very isolated because it will leave bad blood with Christian Democrat parties throughout Europe. It is a stupid, stupid policy.

It’s wholly likely, in the event of a Conservative government, that the Tories will have to go back to the EPP-ED to get anything done. It will also be bad for national Foreign Policy as the Conservatives have alienated all the mainstream parties of Europe in one swift insult.

Thatcher summed up the Conservative attitude to Europe. “No, no, NO!”