The Tories are set to cosy up to some strange and disturbing bedfellows, writes Kate Holman
VICTORIOUS Conservatives at the European elections on June 4 are going to look a bit like a bride waiting at the altar, not only to see if the groom actually shows up, but whether she even knows him or likes the look of him.
Since William Hague went to Brussels in March to confirm the Tories’ withdrawal from the centre-right European People’s Party, the biggest group in the European Parliament, they have started to look increasingly isolated.
David Cameron has expressed confidence that the party will be able to link up with less federalist allies when the European Parliament reconvenes in July. But with whom? The Polish Law and Justice Party and the Czech Civic Democratic Party (ODS) are among the more likely candidates, but the latter is now having second thoughts. The Tories need to recruit at least 25 members from six other countries to qualify as an official grouping. Names in the frame include small, right-wing parties well on the fringes of European Union politics – a “mish-mash of mavericks”, according to outgoing Tory MEP Christopher Beazley. Skeletons in the cupboard range from denying climate change to celebrating Nazi troops as Latvian freedom fighters.
The fact is that no one can say for sure who will be elected in June or what their priorities will be when they get to Strasbourg. Some commentators claim the Tories could attract as many as 70 MEPs to join them, but others say those numbers simply don’t add up. In July, they will be scrabbling around to work out whom they can get into bed with without compromising their principles too noticeably.
Cameron’s Eurosceptic stance has come under fresh attack from former allies, including Swedish centre-right Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But his real problem is that the Tories are not united. The EPP was a broad church that allowed varying tendencies to co-exist, but it will be very different for the Tories if they end up spearheading an incoherent band of extremists with their own agendas. How will they reach positions? What will they campaign on? One real possibility is that the Conservative Group could split, with committed Europeans preferring to return to the EPP and Eurosceptics breaking off into marginal groupings.
In practical terms, the Tories have much to lose: their rights to funding, speaking time, to nominate a vice-president and committee chairs. Further, the European Parliament is very different from Westminster – working more through partnership to reach consensus. And the Tories’ loss of influence might not be confined to Europe. It might spread to the international stage, in relations between the EU and Barack Obama’s administration, for example.
All this might seem good news for Labour. But the party’s current MEPs are being careful not to look too pleased at Tory discomfort. Labour Group leader Glenis Willmott regrets that the Tories’ isolation will significantly weaken British influence and interests in Europe. So European Tories might not be the only victims of David Cameron’s rash and ill thought-through promise to quit the EPP.
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