David Cameron's Nasty New Friends

It is often said that one can judge a man by the company he keeps. So no wonder Tory grandees such as Chris Patten and Leon Brittan are appalled that the Conservative Party leader David Cameron is making new alliances with some of the most unpleasant parties in mainstream European politics, as a consequence of pulling out of the centre-right EPP grouping in the European Parliament. These new friends include Poland’s Law and Justice Party, fiefdom of the Terrible Twins, Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and self proclaimed defender of traditional Catholic values. Lech is now Poland’s president, but while Mayor of Warsaw, he banned Gay Pride marches. His brother Jaroslaw declared that the affirmation of homosexuality would lead to the downfall of civilization. So much for the Tories’ newly vaunted inclusiveness.

Latvia’s For Fatherland and Freedom Party, another of the right-wing parties with which the British Conservatives are making an alliance, is in many ways more worrying, with its xenophobic hyper-nationalism. Others reportedly being wooed by team Cameron include intolerant groups in the Czech Republic. The fact that Cameron prefers to mix with people like these, rather than his earstwhile partners Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, highlights not only the degree of his party’s current euroscepticsm, but also his recklessness in contemplating marginalising Britain from central decision-making within the European Union. No surprise, then, that several of the outgoing Conservative MEPs have branded the whole Cameron policy of Tory realignment in Europe as bonkers.

About these ads