I was very impressed by the presentation by Radoslaw Sikorski on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday.

He moderated his comments that he might have made about the really stupid decision of the British Conservative Party to leave the European Peoples Party Grouping in the EU parliament.

It was a really bad move. The EPP is the largest and dominant group in the Parliament. It represents  the major non-socialist Parties in the EU.  By becoming the major party in a minority group known as the The European Conservatives and Reformists the Conservatives are now left out of the discussions on the future direction of Europe. The Conservatives were not able to persuade the EPP to take a positive line on the management of banking in the EU, and had to fight against it later. They were not there when the EPP selected Jean-Claude Juncker as their preferred candidate for the Presidency of the EU commission and are trying to fight against it later. The European Conservatives and Reformist Group contains some very fringe parties. Ian Macmillan Scott, a very sound European politician was so disgusted by the racist attitudes of the Polish parties in this grouping that he left the Conservative party. Bill Newton Dunn was another Conservative who could not stay with the party in Europe and had a distinguished career as a Lib Dem in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe, a very positive and progressive group.

The Eurosceptics are a real threat to the future of the UK. If they succeed in a referendum which says that the UK (possibly by then without Scotland) will withdraw, the EU will be weakened (don’t forget that the dominant economic powers in the EU are Germany, France and the UK), but will strive to continue on its forward path to be the major economic group in the world. They will not have time or inclination talk to the UK, but will say that if we want to trade with the EU we will have to conform to all their regulations, as Norway does. There will be no benefit to the UK to be out of the EU.

In a private conversation Sikorski was much more forthright about the really silly position that Cameron has been forced into by the eurosceptics in his own party. This conversation and its implications are reported in full in the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/23/polish-mps-ridicule-cameron-stupid-propaganda-eurosceptics

The sensible reaction should be: Sikorski is right, let us join with such a strong potential ally in our project to make the EU a real force for a fair society and strong economy.

 

David Walker

24 June 2014

 

 

 

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