Tag Archives: michal kaminski

Conservative Party accused of smear campaign against Edward McMillan-Scott

The New Statesman reported this week:

In a furious letter sent to Conservative MPs in Westminster, and leaked to the New Statesman, Edward McMillan-Scott describes the decision to allow Michal Kaminski to become the Tories’ new group leader in the EU as “disastrous” and says that his own expulsion for opposing the move was designed “to divert attention from political misjudgements” …

Perhaps most controversially, McMillan-Scott accuses Tory high command of a “smear campaign” against him. In a footnote to the letter entitled “ten killer points”, he makes a series of extraordinary claims including: …

– “A smear campaign was launched against

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The Kaminski row: 2 must-read articles

The row over David Cameron’s decision to pull the Tories out of the main centre-right European grouping, the European People’s Party (EPP), and set up a new group of “extreme and rag-bag” assorted right-wingers, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), has been simmering for months.

It’s burst into the political mainstream this week, courtesy of the unlikely figure of the chief rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich. Back in July, he emailed the New Statesman’s James Macintyre with some sharp criticism of Michael Kaminski, the leader of the Tories’ new Euro grouping, who has faced accusations of anti-semitism and …

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Clegg: Tories “should come clean” on attempts to airbrush Kaminski’s far right past

The Observer has the story:

The Tories were last night accused of a “systematic cover-up” when it emerged that someone at the House of Commons had deleted internet details about a key European ally with a far-right past. Politically embarrassing information about Michal Kaminski, a Polish politician who now leads the Tories in the European parliament, was removed from Wikipedia by someone in the Commons three days after the alliance was formed.

Chris Bryant, the government’s new minister for Europe, called on the Conservatives to “come clean” after the Observer discovered that details of Kaminski’s previous membership of the far-right National Revival of Poland party had been mysteriously removed.

The information was deleted on 25 June by someone using a computer connection directly traceable to the House of Commons. The European Conservatives and Reformists Group, which Kaminski leads and in which the Tories are founder members, was formed on 22 June.

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David Cameron’s European ally supports “deeply homophobic legislation”

Liberal Conspiracy has the story:

Despite the persistent criticism that it has allied itself with extremists, David Cameron’s Conservative Party now sits in the European Parliament with the European Reformists and Conservatives group (ECR), led by Poland’s Michal Kaminski – a man allegedly with a racist and homophobic past.

But so far it has gone unreported that another ally of the Conservatives in Europe has a much more serious and recent record of homophobia.

Valdemar Tomaševski, MEP from Lithuania, and member of the Tories’ Euro coalition, is on record as having branded homosexuality a “perversion”.

Not only that, I can now reveal for the

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Expelled Tory MEP reveals fascist links of Tories’ new Euro leader

Lib Dem Voice has covered before the growing embarrassment to the Tories of David Cameron’s decision to withdraw his party from the centre-right grouping in the European Parliament, the EPP, and to establish a new right-wing grouping with an eccentric, ragbag group of Euro MPs.

This came to a head last month, when Edward McMillan-Scott, a former leader of the Tory party in the European Parliament, was expelled for standing against a Polish MEP, Michal Kaminski, for the post of Vice-President of the European Parliament – Mr Kaminski was subsequently elected leader of the Tories’ new Euro grouping. And now Mr McMillan-Scott has gone on the record in the Yorskshire Post to reveal precisely why he decided to make a stand against the Tory party’s latest descent into Euro lunacy:

Although Kaminski was nominated by the new Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) created by David Cameron, I decided to take the issue head on, even at the discomfiture of my own party. I did this at great personal and political risk – I could have lost everything and have now lost the whip – but I did it on principle.

It was not my principle – it was a higher one. To oppose a menacing political movement at a key moment in Europe’s politics. … my Yorkshire colleague, Timothy Kirkhope – leader of the Conservative MEPs – who that day had been elected leader of the ECR, was simply replaced by Kaminski. …

It has now been disclosed, as Kaminski should have done to the Conservative Party when nominated for Vice-President, that he has had fascist links – he was a member of Poland’s notorious fascist National Revival (NOP) – and he tried, as its MP, to cover up one of the worst anti-Jewish atrocities in wartime Europe.

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Tories lose senior MEP over new right-wing Euro grouping

Three weeks after the Tories tried to sneak out the announcement that they had formed a new right-wing European parliamentary grouping made up of some of Europe’s more, erm, eccentric and extreme characters comes news of the first Tory casualty – ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie tweets:

Edward Macmillan-Scott MEP expelled from Cons Party for disobeying instructions from new EP grouping on elections for VP of Parliament

The news doesn’t come as a complete shock – on 25 June, Mr McMillan-Scott voiced “real concerns” about the Tories’ new Euro friends, commenting:

Despite what David Cameron has said there are already indications that some

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How solid is the Tories’ ‘extreme and ragbag’ Euro grouping?

Two days after the Tories attempted to bury the embarrassing news of their decision to set up a new European Parliament grouping comprising some of the more, erm, eccentric right-wing elements on offer, and the cracks are, apparently, already showing (hat-tip: Liberal Conspiracy):

Hannu Takkula, a Finnish Centre party Euro-MP, was quoted as saying by party news website Verkkoapila on Wednesday that he would stay in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, one of the European Parliament’s political groupings.

The Conservatives and Reformists Group had said Monday that Mr Takkula would join the new group.

Does the un-defection …

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What do you think of the Tories’ new European Conservatives and Reformists group?

The announcement of the Tories’ formal establishment of the new anti-federalist grouping in the European Parliament – the European Conservatives and Reformists group – was (deliberately) buried by the party yesterday on a day when they realised political attention would be focused on the election to be Commons Speaker.

Ever since David Cameron’s panicked and rash promise in 2005 – at a time when his leadership bid was seriously flagging – that the Tories would desert the mainstream centre-right coalition, the European People’s Party (EPP), the Tory party has been grappling with how to achieve this without finding themselves isolated …

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