Diplomats' anger at Tory plans to create right-wing EU group
Joining forces with homophobic Polish MEPs will leave Britain isolated and ridiculed, officials warn
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David Cameron has caused dismay at the highest levels in the Foreign Office over plans for a hardline European policy under a Tory government, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.
The Conservative leader risks leaving Britain isolated and ridiculed, say diplomats, if he pushes ahead with plans to form a new Eurosceptic group in the Strasbourg parliament which would include a party that warns homosexuality will trigger the "downfall of civilisation".
Officials are also alarmed that the shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has told Sir Peter Ricketts, the Foreign Office's permanent secretary, to prepare for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty as the first act of a Tory government. Mr Cameron has not ruled out calling a referendum even if all EU countries ratify the treaty, a move that has caused particular consternation at the Foreign Office.
Mr Hague confirmed last week that the Tories would leave the European People's Party (EPP), the grouping that includes the parties of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, after the European elections on 4 June.
He said formal talks on an "amicable separation" had been completed and that he was confident that at least 20 MEPs representing parties from seven countries – the minimum required to qualify for funding for a new grouping – would sign up, claiming that the Conservatives had "lots of partners in the wings".
The group will include the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS), which has banned gay rights marches for being "sexually obscene". Its co-founder Jaroslaw Kaczynski has said that homosexuality will cause the "downfall of civilisation". Another PiS MP has warned that Barack Obama's victory would mean "the end of the civilisation of the white man". Mr Hague has also held talks with a Latvian hardline nationalist party.
A senior diplomat warned that Mr Cameron must "remain engaged" in Europe and expressed dismay over the treaty and the new grouping.
And the former Europe minister Denis MacShane said: "Tory isolationism is now creating a network of unpleasant, ugly, anti-European parties grouped around Cameron and Hague, but surely they should draw the line at links with gay-bashing homophobes."
Although Tory MEPs are concerned, Mr Cameron's pledge to leave the EPP, made during his 2005 leadership campaign, won over the right wing of his party, and many believe it secured his victory over David Davis. As many as 40 MPs, one in five of all Tory MPs, backed Mr Cameron because of the promise. Although a revolt, if he reneged on the pledge, is unlikely with the Tories so close to power, the U-turn would cause an unnecessary risk, say his aides.
A Conservative spokesman said: "When we form our new group, we will continue to be energetically engaged with our European partners on issues such as global competitiveness, the environment and on global poverty. As for the Lisbon Treaty, the Government promised to give people a say on the EU constitution and we will continue to pressure them to change their mind again and keep that promise. It is a matter of faith and trust."
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Comments
Ideological purity is one thing. But it often defies commonsense. New Labour in government have been hopeless for the past dozen years are too right-wing themselves. At least they are within the political mainstream in Europe as are the Lib Dems.
The EU is a fact of life and won't go away, and it is too important to ignore. It is vital that Britain fights its corner in the corridors of European power. Walking off the field of play, which is what the Tories propose, is not a credible option and does not promote British interests in any way. Taking you bat and ball home is not a policy, it's abdicate of responsibility.
So that is the Pink vote well and truly down the pan then? What does Alan Duncan say about it all?
In fact, it really wouldn't matter if we did join the Euro (Heaven Forfend), because as Dell has demonstrated in Southern Ireland which has the Euro, moving all their plants further East for lower costs in a highly competitive world, is exactly what will happen.
As for the City of London losing its crown, hmm... well it has been tried before and Frankfurt lost, Paris never even tried. As to an ageing population and falling birth rate by the indigenous population if not the illegal immigrant one, that is a Europe wide problem so, and your point is ?
The problem is quite simple and will basically come down to a choice "EU Hapsburg Empire" or "Global Trading Nation" and the latter is our destiny. Allowing our Banks to become too big is what caused us in the UK most grief so "big" doesn't seem that good does it ? FO Mandarins like "functionaries" the World over like benign autocracies where they are in charge, trouble is, no democracy. Of course the UK will leave the political EU sooner rather than later because we just don't need it, neither does Germany truth to tell but - that's a secret, you mustn't tell.
We will call this EU for UK Leftists. I need many votes for this. Please AND we are creating new Currency, IN EU-LEFT WE TRUST FOR THE LAST TIME.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
Easy for Mr Cameron . Sack the lot when you win.
Those who think otherwise do not believe in democracy. Some of them see the people of the country as their serfs, to be managed for the good of the governors. Others lack confidence in their own judgment and seek a saviour to solve their problems for them- they will be disappointed as always, and end up as sheep to be sheared.
Anyone who values himself and his fellow citizens should be screaming for a referendum on this and other important issues, whatever particular outcome they desire.
Blair had his clause 4 moment to demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt that Labour had changed.
Cameron hasn't done that, because Europe was that opportunity. Instead of confronting it, the Tories are going through a tortuous and circuitous route to isolate and alienate the UK from our EU partners, before eventually leaving.
We cannot go on saying no, non or nein to everything, you have to be engaged with the EU to influence it, thats why Thatcher & Major for all their blustering gave away more power to Europe than Labour have ever done.
It is time to decided: Much better for the Tories to say we want out, and have a manifesto pledge to put a proper question in a referendum, then we can have a proper and forthright debate about the facts not Eurosceptic myths.
No, we need a UK In or Out vote following a 3 month election campaign on the subject so all the issues can be aired and Burosso can make a few gaffs .
Personally I want us out because the basic problem is and always will be at root our Adversarial System of Law and Governance. We can cooperate with the EU but we don't want to part of it and even economically, it is backing the wrong horse, there is no New Economy happening there.
Funnily enough, I suspect that the issue of MPs pay and perks with 80% of Laws imposed by Brussels - so what do you do ? Will actually trigger this whole subject rather than approached as the EU in its own right. Also I suspect that rather like the 50p tax rate, the EU is on the list but not top priority for an incoming Conservative government.
Politics is all well and good but the truth is that the Libdems are totally pro EU under any and all circumstances and will never reconsider that position so that overall they don't really figure in the equation do they ?
My position is that I am opposed because of the Democratic deficit which unchecked bodes badly for Europe's future. If the EU was such a good thing, they (the EU), would insist on drawing their moral authority from the democratic will of all the citizens through Referendums (not possible in Germany).
As they refuse to face the people they have no authority just as Brown failing to deliver a Referendum means he deserves no loyalty because he is not a man of his word, his words are weasel words.
"The breaking down of trade barriers, free movemenet of goods, people and services has what helped generate our business. Sitting in the corner complaining instead of in the middle leading Europe is a copout."
This expresses one positive attitude to being in Europe.
I really wonder where the tory right are coming from? We voted to join the EEC (as it was then) in the early seventies. Almost forty years on and the 'outlaws' party has still not got the message.
Like sensible 1234 I would emphasize the positive aspects of EU integration, it leaves the 'outlaws' party in a world of their own.
The interesting thing, though, is that the EU in Brussels is exactly the same. Just a bunch of uppity officials claiming to know what's best for everyone - not just in Europe, but on some issues like climate variability, the whole world! Yet these arrogant bureaucrats acknowledge that their awful CFP (Common Fisherie Policy) has been an ecological catastrophe for fish in EU waters,& that the CAP (Common Agricultaura Policy) creates huge waste - eg a new milk lake is growing again.
The EU is very good at having its annual ccounts rejected by its own auditors, & the MEPs are a by-word for expense-fiddling - worse even than UK Labour government's ministers! So is that what the Foriegn & Commonweealth Office (FCO) wants for Britain? If so, itr seems that sackings all round are needed, & a mass replacement of the FCO's current staff by more even-minded people. They are plenty of them in Britain, but the FCO's election procedure seems to deliberately weed out sensible & fair-minded people! Ego: take no notice of the idiots in the FCO if you want Britain to prosper & be a happier country!
...Yes, and before you get back to me, I know about the Black Police Officers' Association and I don't approve of it either. But at least it's not a national political party aspiring - one assumes - to be the government of the United Kingdom some day in the future. That the BNP clearly does, while at the same time excluding large numbers of British citizens from membership on grounds of skin colour, makes me and many others regard it as quite outside the limits of the acceptable.
thank God we did not join the Euro !!!!!
"Nothing - nothing - could be further from the truth than the idea that the only parties outside the EPP are far-Right. The persistence of the notion that "Tory MEPs may end up with Italian fascists" is one of the most successful pieces of black propaganda I've ever encountered. No one has ever proposed such a thing and, for what it's worth, the party that is descended from Mussolini's, the Alleanza Nazionale, is currently applying to join the EPP. Nor does anyone deny that there were enough respectable parties to form a new group two years ago. This time, there are several more parties in play, including from Romania and Bulgaria, as well as others that have become uncomfortable with their existing affiliations.
Let's look at some of the supposedly far-Right parties, shall we? Some do, admittedly, say unpleasant things. One of our potential allies, for example, ran election posters showing a gay couple with the slogan "Daddy and Papa? Say No!" Another has had hundreds of its MPs and councillors convicted in fraud cases. A third campaigned against the immigration of some computer programmers from India under the slogan "Children Before Indians". But here's the thing: all three of these parties are currently in the EPP. They are, respectively, Forza Italia, the French UMP and the German CDU. High time we found some more moderate partners, I'd say."