Exciting news live from the LDV Broom Cupboard in Birmingham’s ICC.
News reaches us that Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott has defected to the Liberal Democrats and will be joining us here at party conference.
The MEP said today: “I have been around the higher circles of the Conservative party for long enough to fear that on Europe Cameron says one thing in opposition and will do another in government.
“I have long fought against totalitarianism and the extremism and religious persecution it brings. It was wrong of Cameron to associate with MEPs who have extremist pasts in his new European alliance.”
I guess Liberal Democrats will be partying like it’s 1999 2000.
Update: here’s the full text of Edward’s resignation letter to David Cameron …
Dear David,
I am resigning today from my appeal against expulsion from the Conservative Party and from the Party itself to join the Liberal Democrats for three reasons:
1 I have been around the higher circles of the Party long enough, most recently serving on both the Euro-election and General Election strategy committees at CCHQ, to know that Euro-scepticism is in the hearts of most Conservatives. Your decision to split from the mainstream EPP and create the new ECR group has been universally condemned, even by right-wing commentators such as The Economist as a “shoddy, shaming alliance” . You say you will not ‘bang on about Europe’ and your spokesman make warm noises. But I fear that on Europe you say one thing in opposition and will do another in government.
2 You continue to refuse to accept that Michal Kaminski, who now leads the ECR and against whom I stood and won re-election as Vice-President of the European Parliament last July, has had ‘anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist links’. You say that you are against extremism at home , yet you propitiate it abroad.
3 My family, friends and those who work with me will all confirm that I have sought in good faith an amicable resolution of my dispute at all levels in the Party. I have written to you on several occasions without a reply and have pursued the appeal process to which you submitted me in the diminishing expectation of fairness. I have stated my case modestly in the media. Last weekend your lawyers made clear that the appeal would continue to be rigged by you, despite your public pretensions to decency and fairness. As my friend Henry Porter put it in the Observer, your response has been ‘thuggish and panicky’ . You say one thing in public and do another in private.
My reasons for joining the Liberal Democrats are that in Nick Clegg they have a leader whom I like, admire and respect. They are internationalists, not nationalists. They are committed to politics based the values of fairness and change, but you are committed to power for its own sake.
Yours sincerely,
Edward McMillan-Scott MEP
Vice President of the European Parliament
Responsible for Democracy and Human Rights
28 Comments
Personally I think this is excellent news. I’ve met Macmillan-Scott – a friend of mine is more or less his next door neighbour in his village near Pershore. He certainly seems to be liberal in any of the issues I chanced to raise with him, such as software patents and free trade issues. I think he’s been harshly treated by the Tories in their strange EU parliament strategy.
Makes up for Saj Karim!!!
Surely that’s “Ex-Conservative MEP”. He was expelled from the Conservative party 6 months ago. But that doesn’t sound as sensational does it?
Oh! I think it easily *more* than makes up for him!
And there was me thinking it was the snazzy new soundbite friendly campaign slogan wot won it for him…!
Let us hope that come the next European elections we get at least two seats from the vote in Yorkshire and Humber!
It would be a great shame if this was to impact Diana Wallis who holds our existing seat. It will be interesting to see whether McMillan-Scott carried his own personal vote or whether the votes will stay with his former party.
David Cameron does seem intent on weakening his party in Europe; losing a former leader at that level seems a heavy price for his red meat gesture to the Tory right wing of leaving the EPP.
PS, at the conference and want to say hello. Where’s the broom cupboard?
“But that doesn’t sound as sensational does it?”
If only you could add Conservative skeptic to euro skeptic and climate change skeptic.
He should stand down as he was elected as a Tory (but he is welcome of course)
Yes, of course he should, just like Saj did! But there is a problem with that in the Euro-Parliament – his stepping down would not provoke a by-election in which he could put his change of heart to the electorate. The Conservative party, however they do these things, put him on their list, knowing his misgivings about their proposed course of action WRT forming their far-right nationalist friends’ circle jerk group., Whilst party discipline in a parliamentary or even council group is important, and though he presumably made his stand for the Vice-Presidency knowing that it was against a majority (?) decision of his parliamentary group, they were the ones who booted him out from their group.
Tories with double barrelled names defect to the LibDems. In the East Mids we have Bill Newton-Dunn who defected from the Tories. Cameron’s policies on Europe are ridiculous. He was probably told to do it by Ashcroft, who like Murdoch is against anything he can’t buy.
The Lib Dem European Group fringe, organised with Project 3, is at 8pm Saturday, ICC Hall 5.
I wonder if the Steve Green who posted a rather snide comment above is the same Steve Green who is standing for the Conservative Party in the Gosport Council elections this May… a man who spends his entire life infiltrating other people’s websites? Surely not!
On the subject of the defection, it’s good news. Edward MacMillan-Scott has been around a long time and his change of colours shows again how Cameron’s Conservatives are losing some of their longest-standing members who don’t share the near-UKIP hostility towards Europe of many on the Tory right.
Good news all round. Edward McMillan-Scott acted with dignity and probity with his stand over the Euro-Tories’ lurch to loonyland. A long way from any kind of paradigm shift yet, but a solid start. Welcome aboard, Edward.
Is that the same Peter Chegwyn who is suspended from being a councillor? The same one who had his comments removed from the UK Polling Report site for publishing my address on there? Was my comment snide? possibly yes. Was it inaccurate? No. And Peter, I’m a blogger, I read blogs and comment on them sometimes. It is hardly “infiltrating” – calm down dear, you are starting sound hysterical.
Yep! I was right. Steve Green has confirmed he is indeed the Conservative Steve Green from Gosport. Nice to know he has nothing better to do than try to infiltrate Liberal Democrat boards without revealing his membership of the nasty party! They never learn!
Peter, If you click on my name it takes you to my blog, it is hardly espionage. The header on my blog says: Steve Green’s Daily Referendum. I’m a well known Conservative blogger. I do think you are getting a bit carried away with this conspiracy theory stuff. Chill out Peter
Yawn. Now you’re getting boring. Kindly desist. I’ve got better things to do than read Conservative blogs.
I posted on here first Peter, you came on here accusing me of all sorts, and now you look a bit silly. See ya xxx
Yawn (again). If the Conservative Party is full of people like Steve Green it helps explain why their poll rating is down again in two polls tomorrow.
Peter, And the Lib Dems are always going to be the third party because……….?
I don’t see any snide comments in this thread, until about, let’s see, here, really. Then the whole thread gets turned into a petty little tit-for-tat private conversation.
Oh, well. Must be the sea air, all that ozone.
Peter, I realise there’s no accounting for taste, but we do get Tories on here frequently enough. I hardly think it amounts to “infiltration” (especially since Steve doesn’t exactly hide who he is).
Well what a faff over nothing! Steve doesn’t need me to defend him, but I know who *appears* personally to be the childish one in this exchange, and it ain’t him. But I’m not going to get any more drawn into what appears to be a right old Hampshire hullabaloo!
Peter, why don’t we just bury the hatchet? Our falling out like this is not in the best interest of the people of Gosport. It would be nice to have a good, clean and friendly election campaign. How about it?
Good luck and Regards
Steve Green
Steve Green: “It would be nice to have a good, clean and friendly election campaign.”
Agreed. The Liberal Democrats always conduct “good, clean and friendly election campaigns” in Gosport.
Sadly the Conservatives do not.
Which is probably why a High Court Judge recently described Conservative leaflets issued against me in Gosport as “entirely untrue” and “defamatory”.
Now why don’t we just end this personal exchange on a public messageboard and get back to campaigning.
It’s a lovely sunny day. I’m off delivering my latest “good, clean and friendly” Focus!
P.S. As this debate was originally about a Conservative MEP defecting to the Lib. Dems. you could always do the same Steve?
Then we really could be friends!
Peter – The nasty party can be really really nasty when they want to, but its just sour grapes when they have lost the arguement. The Tories have never taken me to court, but they used regularly to report me to the Standards Board for England and were rejected. I only found out of course when I had letters from the Board on posh headed notepaper telling me the result.
Keep to the policies and keep campaigning. That’s what the electorate understand. They soon sus out the likes of Steve Green. The more extreme he gets the more our votes will pile up. Its this doubt about the true Conservative party which Cameron is trying to hide which is giving us such a great opportunity. Labour is so awful I can understand why people are looking elsewhere. Keep banging out the 4 LibDem policies and the fairness agenda!
Ah well, I tried. Sorry to the regular readers if this turned into a Gosport slanging match. It was not my intention when I left my first comment which was actually about the subject of this post. Cheers Steve.
For some unidentifiable reason (the comment has no link in it), my comment appears to have stuck in the spam filter. Or has moderation been turned on?