Polish racist, antisemitic homophobe snubbed in the EP, given tory leadership

[Martinus]

Defiant Tory MEP loses party whip
A senior Tory MEP has had the whip withdrawn after defying orders on the party's first day of work with its new "anti-federalist" group.

Edward McMillan-Scott stood against the new ECR group's official candidate, a Polish MEP, for one of the European Parliament vice presidencies, and won.

He had opposed the Tory decision to leave the main EPP centre-right group.

The BBC understands the Tories' Polish allies were furious and were placated by being handed the group's leadership.

Mr Cameron had long promised to remove Tory MEPs from the main European People's Party centre right grouping, saying its federalist views were at odds with Conservative policy.

Official nominee

But to access EU funding they had to be part of a group in the European Parliament with a minimum of 25 MEPs from at least seven states.

The Tories formed a new grouping last month - the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECRG) - made up of 55 MEPs from eight countries.

But as members of the ECRG took their seats on Tuesday at the start of a five-year term, Mr McMillan-Scott made clear he would be standing for the vice president post - even though he was not its official nominee.

" Rather than withdrawing the whip, David Cameron should be pleased that a Tory is still at the top in Europe "
Edward McMillan-Scott
In a statement the UK Tory group said he had had the whip withdrawn at that point and it was "not expected" he could remain part of the ECRG grouping.

"He was offered the opportunity to withdraw his name to avoid harming the reputation of the Conservative Party," it said.

"Despite discussions and attempts to achieve this end, he went ahead and confirmed his nomination when voting commenced.

"At that point as he had received prior warning of the consequences and the Conservative whip was withdrawn."

Chairmanship deal

It was reported that Tory leader David Cameron had phoned Mr McMillan-Scott and asked him to respect a deal in which Polish MEP Michael Kaminski, part of the new ECR group, would get the vice presidency while Tory MEP leader Timothy Kirkhope would be voted in as chairman of the new group.

But on Wednesday it emerged that the chairmanship would go to an MEP from Poland's Law and Justice Party, after Mr Kirkhope reportedly agreed to stand aside.

" Despite some very magnanimous words from Mr Kirkhope this morning supporting his new group leader, it must have been a bitter pill to swallow, given the work he had personally put in to set the group up in the first place "

The Tories are the biggest party in the new grouping, with 26 MEPs of the total 55. Poland's Law and Justice Party is the second biggest with 15 MEPs.

The BBC's Europe reporter Dominic Hughes said the Tories had argued that the new grouping would give them a greater voice in Europe but now it was its Polish chairman who would get valuable guaranteed speaking time in debates. The Tories may also miss out on powerful committee chairmanships as a result, he added.

Mr McMillan-Scott, an MEP since 1984, dismissed suggestions he would return to the EPP grouping as an independent.

He said: "The public wants to see transparency and real democracy from their parliamentarians - in Brussels or Westminster.

"Standing as an independent candidate, for the values of democracy and human rights which I have worked to promote worldwide, I have made a start.

"Rather than withdrawing the whip, David Cameron should be pleased that a Tory is still at the top in Europe."

The Tories' decision to leave the main EPP group has been criticised by Labour and the Lib Dems - and some Tories.

Former Tory MEP Caroline Jackson said it was "stupid" and the party was swapping an alliance with Europe's biggest parties for "odds and sods".

The Kaminski fellow is a former member of an openly and violently antisemitic and racist paramilitary organisation (that was always banned in Poland few years ago), and is a known homophobe (for example in a televised interview he referred to gays as "faggots" and did not correct/apologise when call on it by the journalist).

So any tories out there - that's your new leader in the European Parliament. Enjoy!

[Neil]

Another victory for heterosexuality.

[Martinus]

Another victory for heterosexuality.

Victory? He was voted down.

As a consolation prize, his buddies voted him a leader of an insignificant group in the EP that the tories decided to form with some loony parties from Eastern Europe.

[Neil]

Another victory for heterosexuality.

Victory? He was voted down.

As a consolation prize, his buddies voted him a leader of an insignificant group in the EP that the tories decided to form with some loony parties from Eastern Europe.

Let's be fair:  All groups in the EP are insignificant.  And leader is a step up from whip.  The cause advances.  You will soon suffer.

[Strix]

Marty, didn't you start a gay thread to post these kinds of propaganda in?

[Martinus]

Marty, didn't you start a gay thread to post these kinds of propaganda in?

This is not a gay thread. This is a thread about European politics.

[Valmy]

Marty, didn't you start a gay thread to post these kinds of propaganda in?

This is not a gay thread. This is a thread about European politics.

To you politics is a continuation of gayness by other means.

[Martinus]

From Times Online
July 16, 2009
Right-wing Polish MEP Michal Kaminski becomes Tories controversial EU leader
David Charter
A controversial right-wing Polish MEP became the main voice of the Conservative Party in Europe yesterday, a further embarrassment for David Cameron's new group of eurosceptics.

The key role of leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists went to Michal Kaminski, a former spin-doctor for President Kaczynski, even though the Tories are by far the largest party in the eight-nation group.

Timothy Kirkhope, leader of the 25 Conservative MEPs, was forced to step aside for Mr Kaminski to diffuse a row with the 15 Poles after a furious phone call from Mr Kaczynski to Mr Cameron, The Times understands.

The Poles were angry that Edward McMillan-Scott, the longest-serving Tory MEP, defeated Mr Kaminski for vice-president of the Parliament — breaking an agreement that the Pole would be the group's only candidate.

Mr McMillan-Scott was expelled from the Conservatives on Tuesday night but in order to save the new group Mr Kaminiski was handed its leadership. It means that he will sit in the front row of the European Parliament instead of Mr Kirkhope and give the group's main response in all the big debates.

The choice of Mr Kaminski, 37, for leader raised eyebrows because of his firebrand past. In 1999 he attracted headlines in Poland when, as an MP, he travelled to London to pay homage to General Augusto Pinochet.

As a young man he not only associated with the far-right National Revival of Poland but also a hardline Catholic organisation, the Christian-National Union. He is understood to remain an anti-abortionist and opposed to gay rights.

While he was spin-doctor for Mr Kaczynski, the President ran a campaign against the Lisbon Treaty which warned that it would force deeply conservative Poland to accept gay marriages under the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.

To add to the Tory party's discomfort Mr Kaminski was branded "completely inappropriate and unsuitable" by Mr McMillan-Scott in an interview with the BBC's The Record: Europe to be broadcast this week.

Mr McMillan-Scott said he was uncomfortable that Mr Kaminski had been in the National Revival of Poland for three years. "It is homophobic, racist, anti-semitic — they use the Nazi salute, they are linked to the BNP through a thing called the European National Front — it is a deeply unpleasant organisation," Mr McMillan-Scott said.

Mr Kaminski rebutted the claims about his old affiliations, saying that National Revival had lurched to the extreme right long after he had left it.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, made his maiden speech in the European Parliament yesterday and used it to warn against a military strike on Iran that used human rights as an excuse. He also attacked the campaign group Unite Against Facism as "an organisation of far-left criminals which routinely deploys violence and intimidation against nationalist dissidents in Britain".

Hey Brits, any thoughts on whether this may actually hurt the tories in the UK (or at least force them to backtrack on their EP alliance)?

[Martinus]

And from the Torygraph:

Tory MEPs 'led by Pole with extremist past'
David Cameron's Conservative MEPs have been forced to surrender the leadership of their new Eurosceptic group to a controversial Polish Right-winger who faces allegations that he has an extremist past.

By Bruno Waterfield in Strasbourg and Matthew Day in Warsaw
Published: 8:43PM BST 15 Jul 2009

In order to prevent the European Conservative and Reformist group (ECR) falling apart on the first day of its existence, the Tories handed over its chairmanship to Michal Tomasz Kaminski, a senior figure in the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) and a close aide to Lech Kaczynski, Poland's Right-wing president.

Timothy Kirkhope, the leader of Conservative MEPs, was forced to drop his own plan, supported by the party leadership, to stand for the post after a Tory rebel beat Mr Kaminski in elections for the European Parliament's vice-presidency.

Edward McMillan-Scott was promptly expelled from the European Conservatives for defeating Mr Kaminski. Following the vote, furious Polish MEPs demanded control of ECR as compensation.

The situation is deeply embarrassing for the Tories.

Mr Kaminski will now be the public face of the new Conservative grouping as allegations that his political past has involved links to Right-wing extremists have surfaced.

According to the office of the National Rebirth of Poland (NOP), a far-Right Polish party regarded by the US State Department as anti-Semitic, Mr Kaminski was a former student member.

Mr Kaminski admitted to The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday that he had been an NOP member but only under Communism, "between 1987 and 1989".

"It was a time I am very proud of, when at the age of 15, I decided to become a member of the underground against the Communist dictatorship. At the time this was a patriotic youth organisation not anti-Semitic or Nazi," he said.

"Someone who has not lived his life under dictatorship should very careful of accusing people who were in the anti-communist underground. I was brave enough to raise the banner."

"I left to join the Christian National Union."

The 37-year old ECR leader dismissed "ridiculous" any suggestions that he was anti-Semitic and said both his grandfathers fought the Nazis in the Second World War.

"Michal Kaminski was a member of the NOP party. He was in the party from about 1989 to 1991: at the most three years," said Marek Wojciechowski, an NOP spokesman claimed

In the 1990s Mr Kaminski, who was born in 1972, then joined a hard Right party called the Christian National Union.
As a fringe party it scored minor successes in elections, returning MPs to the Polish parliament, with Mr Kaminski among their number.

In 2001, Mr Kaminski was alleged, by the US-based Anti-Defamation League and others, to have mobilised the local population in the north-eastern Polish town of Jedwabne against a commemoration of a wartime pogrom against Jewish people.

"Kaminski, now representing Law and Justice in the European Parliament, is on record as declaring his allegiance to the infamous slogan 'Poland for the Polish' which evokes memories of the anti-Semitic violence of the 1920s and 1930s," alleged a 2006 report from the league.

Mr Kaminski did not deny the 2001 events in Jedwabne but insisted: "I have always been in favour of punishing those who committed crimes against Jews."

Polish commentators say that Mr Kaminski is now regarded as a modernising and moderating influence in the PiS, compared to others in the party, such as its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Mr McMillan-Scott has insisted that he defied the Tory leadership because of his concerns, repeatedly expressed, over the Mr Kaminiski's background.

"I warned the group about this when it was formed three or four weeks ago  even naming an organisation then I didn't know he belonged to it but he did, the notorious National Revival of Poland. We should've been told that," he said.
"It's homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic ... they're linked to the BNP through a thing called the European National Front, it's a deeply unpleasant organisation."

Mr Cameron's plan to break from the mainstream, pro-integration and largely federalist European People's Party, the dominant political force in the parliament, is a central plank of his policy on Europe.

But he had always planned to have a British Tory leading the ECR, giving the Conservatives a new higher profile in the European Union.

Mr McMillan-Scott has put paid to this plan.

[Martinus]

Also, for those more visually inclined, the picture of the Tories' glorious leader in the EP:

[Martinus]

I like to think that my furious posting yesterday on several conservative British blogs, as well as an e-mail to the Guardian helped, if only a little, in this fallout. 

[Martinus]

Marty, didn't you start a gay thread to post these kinds of propaganda in?

This is not a gay thread. This is a thread about European politics.

To you politics is a continuation of gayness by other means.

[Zanza]

Sounds like the Tories found a nasty bunch of new friends.

[Martinus]

Sounds like the Tories found a nasty bunch of new friends.

More importantly, this seems like a total marginalisation for them. Not only they left the strongest EP faction to form an irrelevant (5th in terms of numbers) club with some nasty thugs, they had to give up the leadership of the faction to one of them.

[Neil]

I like to think that my furious posting yesterday on several conservative British blogs, as well as an e-mail to the Guardian helped, if only a little, in this fallout. 

I have my doubts.  I'm sure you came off as a lunatic homosexual zealot, and thus unworthy of attention, or even life.