Leaving the nasty party behind

In yet another sign of Cameron's flight from the centre ground, Yorkshire and the Humber MEP Edward McMillan-Scott left the Conservative party for the Liberal Democrats after a long running battle over Britain's future in Europe.

LDEPP (Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament) leader:

"I am delighted to welcome Edward McMillan-Scott to the Liberal Democrat delegation in the European Parliament. He has an impeccable record on human rights and is very highly thought of across the political spectrum in the European Parliament, of which he is a vice-president."

Edward McMillan-Scott (Vice-President of the European Parliament) writes:

William Hague has been using positive words to describe the Conservative party's future relations in government with our EU partners. I have been around the higher circles of the party for long enough to know that a visceral euroscepticism has been growing there since John Major's day. I had a stand-up row with Hague when, while leader of the Tory MEPs, he tried to get me to back his "Never to the Euro" ticket. It was chilling to hear the party leader say to one very senior spokesman at an EU meeting some years ago: "We can say what we like here, but it will be different when we are in government." I should have left then, instead of carrying on the pro-European fight from within.

David Cameron shields his europhobes. No murmur was made when Lord Tebbit in effect encouraged local Conservatives to vote Ukip against the Speaker, John Bercow, in the general election. The dog whistle is really at a lower pitch: that Ukip supporters know that there is a real home for them, back in the Conservative party. Dan Hannan MEP plays the same game, even declaring that he had resigned his spokesmanship to campaign full-time for a referendum on EU in-or-out. No slapdown there, either; certainly no expulsion. But then he is a chum of Sam Cameron's; they were at Marlborough College together.

No doubt my re-election last July as European parliament vice-president against the "official" candidate from Poland's Law and Justice Party, Michal Kaminski, put forward by Cameron's controversial new group, caused some discomfiture. But the campaign of vilification against me when I explained my reasons - that Kaminski had a recent antisemitic, homophobic and racist past - was so bizarre that it began to attract attention.

In July 2001 a national Polish commemoration and apology was held to mark the anniversary of one of the most notorious massacres of the Second World War. At Jedwabne in July 1941, more than 400 Jews were rounded up by their Polish neighbours and herded into a barn where they were burned.

The Griffin defence

Kaminski was the local MP and he made it his business to organise opposition to the event. He denies this now, as he denies so much else of his easily discovered past, using the Nick Griffin defence: "If I said it then, I would not say it today."

Last week Cameron was interviewed by the Jewish Chronicle and assured its readers that he would bear down hard on extremism in Britain. This sits uneasily with a man who propitiates it in Europe. Conservative press officers hounded Labour over Damian McBride. The same pack have been repeatedly reported to me by journalists as using heavy tactics. One hapless Yorkshire Post journalist was called one week by six Tory boys demanding a 'right of reply' for Kaminski. He coolly and properly said that, if he accepted that, he would also have to give space to Nick Griffin. The same team put it about that I was antisemitic because I once met Hamas - actually to tell them to stand for election. They are out again now distorting the facts about my defection to the Lib Dems. I am not bitter, but they are twisted. It is not a nice party now.

I have known, liked and respected Nick Clegg for some years, whether as a key negotiator on trade while Sir Leon Brittan was EU commissioner or later as an MEP. Most of my family are liberals and I am comfortable joining the Liberal family. From being a liberal Conservative I have become a conservative Liberal. And it is not a nasty party.

From "Lib Dem Eurofile" No. 3, March 2010. Adapted by kind permission from a piece in the Observer.

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