Margaret Thatcher was this week inaugurated as president of the political foundation of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament. The foundation, called New Direction, it is set to receive substantial European Union funding.
Critics say the former Prime Minister has allowed her name and reputation to be associated with an assortment of right-wing fundamentalists many of whom hold views completely at odds with what David Cameron says his party supports.
One influential centre-right figure in Brussels said: “The European Conservatives and Reformists are like the Addams Family of the European Parliament and it appears that Baroness Thatcher wants to be Morticia.”
New Direction was officially launched at a reception in the City of London on Tuesday. However, it appears Conservative Party opinion about it is divided. While 44 members of the 54-strong group of right-wing MEPs have signed up to support the foundation, seven out of 25 Tory MEPs have declined be associated with it.
Defence Secretary Liam Fox was present at the reception and it was claimed this exposed the divisions over Europe that still remain in the Tory Party.
During the final days of the general election campaign in May, Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg described the Tories’ allies in Europe as “nutters, anti-Semites, people who deny climate change exists and homophobes”.
He was taken to task over the use of the word “nutters”, but serious questions continue to be asked about some members of the Tories’ group in Europe.
On the same day as the New Direction launch, Business Secretary Vince Cable hosted a lunchtime reception in Brussels at which he attempted to present a moderate and constructive face to the European Parliament. One Brussels political commentator said: “It appears that the supposed centre-left hand doesn’t know what the far right hand is doing in this coalition”.
Earlier this month, the European Conservatives and Reformists group held a meeting in the Latvian capital, Riga.
This was despite the Latvian element of the ECR, the far-right For Freedom and Fatherland, having only recently forged a national electoral pact with the unapologetic neo-Nazi All for Latvia group.
David Cameron’s decision that the Tories should leave the mainstream right grouping in the European Parliament and sign up with more extreme elements is now seen by many to be causing increasing problems for the coalition Government.
seasoned observer of the European Parliament said: “Nick Clegg was partly right in his description of the British Conservative Party’s new friends. He could also have added: ‘Wafffen SS apologists, neo-Nazi fellow travellers and extreme religious fundamentalists’. Is Baroness Thatcher really aware who forms a significant part of the foundation of which she is now president?”
