CAMERON'S TORIES IN NEO-FASCIST LINKS

CAMERON'S TORIES IN NEO-FASCIST LINKS

CAMERON'S EU GROUP HAVE NAZI ALLIES

ANOTHER EMBARASSMENT FOR WILLIAM HAGUE

EXCLUSIVE  A version of this article was published in Tribune Magazine this week (03/09/10) 

Terry Moore, Brussels

In an astounding development, key allies of David Cameron's Conservative party have lurched to the far-right and made a faustian pact with odious elements of the Latvian extreme right.

The unashamedly neo-fascist "All for Latvia" is now an official political partner with the Tories' Latvian allies. "All for Latvia" platform is one of extreme nationalism and is inspired by Nazi ideology and imagery. Its logo appears to be a deliberate echo of the swastika.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_For_Latvia!_logo.png

The logo for the electoral pact between "All For Latvia" and Cameron's Conservatives' allies the For Fatherland and Freedom/ LNNK party appears to be no better in hiding their 'artistic' and political inspiration. See 'All for Latvia's' website.

http://www.visulatvijai.lv/images/vltblnnk_logo_sm.jpg

 

The Official Latvian section of the Tories European Parliament (EP) group is made of the For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK party (TB/LNNK), which has one MEP in the the Parliament. The Latvian party has consistently been attacked for closely allying themselves with Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS veterans who fought for Germany in the Second World war.

The UK Conservatives have always sat uneasily in their political grouping in the European Parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists. Beside the Tories, the rest of the group is made up of the mad, the bad and the truly awful. Or what Nick Clegg called a group of "nutters", "homophobes" and "anti-semites".

Now Cameron's Latvian allies have gone one step further and established a formal electoral alliance with Latvian neo-fascists. The TB/LNNK is now part of an electoral coalition with the "All for Latvia" party.

The "All for Latvia party" is led by Raivis Dzintars, an unreconstructed neo-nazi populist. Amongst Dzintars beliefs are that the common interests of the nation have a higher value than the interests of individual people.

http://visulatvijai.blog.com/files/2010/06/dzintars6vg.jpg

Raivis Dzintars (bottom right of picture) with 'supporters'.

Eric Pickles, the Conservative's Communities Minister has previously defended the TB/LNNK's actions in support of SS war veterans, claiming that they were Latvian patriots and has accused critics of recycling “old Soviet smears” about the Latvians. It now appears that the then Conservative Party Chair, Eric Pickles was naïve in the extreme.

The current Foreign-Secretary, William Hague, even went do far in defending the Latvian For Fatherland and Freedom Party last autumn, by attacking David Miliband, “David Miliband’s comments about the Conservative Party and their European allies are frankly preposterous. His suggestion that the membership of the European Conservatives and Reformists are anti-Semitic and Nazi sympathisers is unfounded and outrageous.

Hague's robust defence of the Tories' allies appears now to have been both unwise and a hostage to fortune. It is quite clear by the electoral pact established in Latvia that the Latvian far-right are anti-semites and Nazi sympathisers.

The far-right 'heroes' of the  Latvian Waffen SS had a founding ethos of direct involvement in the holocausts with the Latvian Sonderkommando Arajs, acting under German orders, directly murdering 26,000 Latvian Jews. It was the veterans of the Sonderkommando Arajs that were the founding fathers of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen SS.

The Tories appear powerless to control their far-right allies in the EU and because of the European Parliamentary arithmetic it seems they cannot afford to lose their support. Financial support for political groups is quite generous in the EP, however if the Tories were to expel their Latvian allies that would jeopardise the viability of their group and risk the ending of EP funding. It appears that Cameron, Hague et al are prepared to sacrifice their consciences for a few euros of lucre.

David Cameron must bear sole responsibility for the appalling political consequences of his decision (and it was his decision alone) to quit the mainstream centre-right grouping in the European Parliament (The EPP) and set up the new right-wing group.

The unholy alliance is due to contest the Latvian Parliamentary election on Saturday October 2^nd, just one day before the 2010 Conservative Party conference starts.

http://www.visulatvijai.lv/news.php