New Tory leader faces Euro party row
David Cameron faces an immediate row with his party’s MEPs if he is elected Conservative leader today as expected.
Significant numbers of Tories at the European Parliament will resist their new leader’s orders to quit the European People’s Party (EPP), predicted one MEP.
In one of his few explicit policy commitments during the campaign for the leadership, Mr Cameron has pledged to pull his MEPs out of the bloc.
The EPP is the largest group in the Brussels parliament and brings together centre-right MEPs from across the European Union.
It is a “broad church” politically, but too federalist for many Tories in the UK.
Conservative MEPs are today holding their own leadership election, and its result may decide whether Mr Cameron faces a tough battle to impose his will.
Challenger Chris Heaton-Harris, who backs the Witney MP’s approach, is hoping to unseat Timothy Kirkhope, who is believed to be more well-disposed towards the EPP.
East Midlands MEP Mr Heaton-Harris told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “There are a lot of good things about the EPP group, but when you come down to the nitty-gritty of the politics, they are fairly protectionist, they are not particularly pro-American, they are not conservative tradewise and they are very federalist.
“They want a single European state.”
But one of his colleagues suggested that his anti-EPP views were not widely shared in the Conservative group – the largest bloc of British MEPs.
Philip Bushell-Matthews, a West Midlands MEP, told Today: “Leaving the EPP won’t speed up a solution. It would simply slow it down.
“David Cameron – assuming it is David – has said he is the unity candidate. I just do not believe he will wish to create disunity on his first day, simply to appease a very vocal minority.
“I would not move. I think a large number of us would not move, for a very simple reason.
“We have made a clear manifesto commitment, which each of us had to sign, that we would stay for the duration of this parliament.”
Many of the 26 Tory MEPs fear that quitting the EPP would cost them influence and funding at Brussels.
They argue they would be left with the choice between allying themselves with rightist parties with unpalatable views or sacrificing European financial support by standing alone.
