THATCHER'S HEIRS IN EUROPE TAKE A DANGEROUS NEW DIRECTION

Terry Moore

EXCLUSIVE (published in Tribune 1st October)

In an outstanding piece of political foolhardiness, Margaret Thatcher was yesterday (Thursday 30^th 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.

Tories' Treachery Over EU Allies

Terry Moore in Brussels
Published in Tribune Magazine 21 May 2010 www.tribunemagazine.co.uk

In a highly cynical manoeuvre, the Tories in the European Parliament are going to collapse their right-wing grouping before it falls apart. They then intend to present this as a sign of maturity in Government and as a devious signal to their new coalition allies the Lib Dems that the Tories can do compromise.

In reality, The Tories have spent an inordinate amount of political capital after Cameron took over the Tory party leadership, establishing a new right-wing group in the European Parliament called the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) . However as a leader of one of their strategic allies in the European Parliament (the Czech Civil Democrats, ODS party) points out they utterly failed to create a sustainable grouping that could have any influence in the EU Parliament.

Furthermore, the ODS leader, Miroslav Ouzký believes that the Tories are untrustworthy partners and are preparing to sabotage the group in pursuit of their own self-interest. Ouzky's distrust is telling as the ODS are the only sensible members of the ECR which is otherwise made up of Religious fundamentalists , far-right Baltic State MEPs both with a smattering of anti-semitism and blatant homophobia and maverick independents as well as the ODS and the Tories.

The Tories left the main centre-right grouping the European Peoples' Party (EPP) and incurred the wrath of mainstream centre-right leaders such as Merkel and Sarkozy. Cameron now looks like he is going to jump before he is pushed and apply to rejoin the EPP (allegedly from a position of strength when it is in fact from a position of great weakness).

The ECR group is so fragile that it only needs two members from their 54 member grouping to walk out and it will no longer be viable and would lose all funding from the European Parliament and its rump would be looked upon as renegade independents, not to be trusted.

The current leader of the Czech ODS party in the European Parliament,  Miroslav Ouzký, has outlined his fears about Tory treachery in a recent interview. “The faction is very fragile from the inside, since it only has the minimum number of required delegations, therefore the walkout of only 2 members can dissolve it. Sufficient would be that Cameron stops convincing some of its unsettled individuals to stay at ECR- which I could imagine he will do.”

“He also despairs at the commitment of his Tory allies., “When the topics come to the cars, Czech chemical industry, water, we always discuss with Germans, the Tories are not interested in our problems at all.” The full interview can be found (in Czech) at:-

 http://www.ods.cz/eu/prispevek.php?ID=12200&page=34 .