Terry Moore
EXCLUSIVE (published in Tribune 1st October)
In an outstanding piece of political foolhardiness, Margaret Thatcher was yesterday (Thursday 30th September) formally inaugurated as the founding President of the Conservative Party's group's political foundation in the European Parliament. The group has named the foundation 'New Direction' and is set to receive substantial funding.
In reality, Thatcher has allowed her name and reputation as a former UK Prime Minister to be directly associated with a motley ragbag assortment of right-wing fundamentalists that, in the main, hold trenchant views completely at odds with what Cameron claims his party supports. As one influential centre-right figure in the European Parliament, "the European Conservatives and Reformists are like the Adams family of the European Parliament and it appears that Margaret wants to be Morticia".
The New Foundation was formally launched at an evening reception in the City of London yesterday . However, it appears that the launch of the foundation has split the Tories' group in Europe. Only 44 members of the 54 strong group of MEPs have signed up to support it and 7 out of 25 Tory MEPs refuse to be associated with the foundation. Yet, the Tory Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox,will also attended the reception, in effect exposing the divisions over Europe that still reamin in the Tory party.
During the final days of the general election campaign last May, the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, described the Tories' allies in Europe as "nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists and homophobes". Whilst the use of the word nutters may be unfortunate, there are serious questions to be asked about many of the Tories' group in Europe (included several Tory MEPs themselves).
What should also now concern Clegg is that whilst his Conservative allies MEPs and their EU colleagues are becoming more and more 'off the wall', his deputy and Secretary of State for Business, Vince Cable hosted a lunchtime reception in Brussels, on the same day as the foundation was launched, in which he was attempting to present a moderate and constructive face to the European Parliament, As one seasoned observer of the Brussels political scene said “It appears that the supposed centre-left hand doesn't know what the far right hand is doing in this coalition”.
The Tories group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), recently showed their appalling lack of political judgement, by earlier this month, organising a meeting of the group in the Latvian capital, Riga. This despite the Latvian element of the ECR, the far-right 'For Freedom and Fatherland' having only recently forging a national electoral pact with the unapologetic neo-Nazi “All for Latvia” Group.
Cameron's pledge (backed by William Hague and used as a sop to right wing eurosceptic elements in his party) to leave the main (and mainly sensible) centre-right group in the European Parliament and set up his own nefarious right-wing group, was the first sign of extremely poor political judgement on his part and it looks like it will continue to haunt him.
Clegg was partly right to describe the group as “nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists and homophobes”, he should also have added, quite reasonably, “Wafffen SS apologists, neo-nazi fellow travellers and extreme religious fundamentalists”. Is Thatcher really aware who forms a significant part of the foundation she has become President of.
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