MEP slams 'humiliating' EPP delay
Tuesday, 1 August 2006 12:00 AM
David Cameron's decision to delay withdrawal from the EPP was "indefensible, humiliating and wrong", a Conservative MEP has warned.
Roger Helmer said the party leader had promised to take the Tories out of the centre-right grouping in the European parliament within weeks, not months - only to announce last month that it would not now happen until 2009.
"Far from fulfilling his pledge, as he has claimed, he has betrayed it - and us," he wrote in an article for the Freedom Association's magazine.
He added: "My fear is that party activists will defect to the UK Independence party (Ukip), along with millions of Conservative votes in the 2009 Euro-elections."
The outspoken condemnation of Mr Cameron's only key policy decision since becoming Tory leader last December was seized upon by Labour with glee.
"David Cameron's broken promise leaves the credibility of his policy commitments completely undermined," declared former Europe minister Dennis McShane.
"It has become increasingly clear that whenever it comes to matters of policy judgment, David Cameron gets it wrong."
The Tory leader's pledge was an attempt to get Eurosceptic MEPs alongside and bring some consistency to the party policies. The EPP, or the European People's party, advocates a federal Europe, something anathema to most Conservatives.
However, moderate Conservative MEPs warned that in leaving the EPP they would be left isolated, and lose their right to sit on parliamentary committees. There were also fears that the only people left to ally with outside the grouping were far-right parties.
Mr Cameron and shadow foreign secretary William Hague announced last month that they had struck a deal with the moderate Czech Democrats, but would not join forces until 2009. Until then, the Tories would stay in the EPP.
The plan was praised at the time as a way of resolving the issue, but today Mr Helmer warned the delay would make life impossible for him and his colleagues until then, and would have the likely effect of driving away Eurosceptic Tories.
"If Cameron had in fact made leaving the EPP a first-week task, the new group would have been in place by now. We should have saved months of adverse press coverage and inner turmoil," he argued.
He added: "Now four successive Conservative leaders have gone into bat on the EPP issue - Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron - and each in turn has retired hurt."
Labour's Mr McShane was quick to add his criticisms, warning: "Tory isolationism will do damage to the national interest if they ever got back into office.
"They now find themselves completely marginalised from the new centre right governments in Europe and without influence within the EPP, yet unable to join a new group outside it."
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