NEWS FROM LABOUR: Labour’s Shadow Europe Minister, Gareth Thomas MP has written to Conservative Chair, Grant Shapps, to challenge him to come clean about the impact of his party’s new alliances with the controversial Finns Party and the Danish People’s Party in the European Parliament.

In his letter Gareth Thomas says the Conservative Party’s decision to join with these two parties who are on the fringe of European politics, marks the ‘final nail in the coffin’ of the so-called Tory modernisation project.

He challenges the Conservative Party Chair to explain the decision, given links with both parties were rejected in the past by David Cameron because of their extreme views.

The letter from Gareth Thomas:

Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP
Chair, Conservative Party

Dear Grant,

It was reported this week that the Conservative Party in the European Parliament has admitted two new partners to your European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR).

The two newly joined parties - the Danish Peoples’ Party and the Finns Party - are widely seen as having political and social views which place them on the fringe of European politics.

As you know, both parties were previously officially allied with Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party in the European Parliament, and have been shunned by other mainstream centre-right parties, including Angela Merkel’s CDU, and indeed until now by David Cameron.

In light of these developments, it is deeply concerning that following the Conservative’s decision to admit these two new members to the ECR, some of the new MEPs in your party’s European grouping have criminal records for making inflammatory and socially divisive remarks in their own countries.

I am sure you will be aware, for example, of the case of Jussi Halla-aho of the Finns Party who was convicted just two years ago of stoking ethnic tensions in Finland after declaring a link between the practice of Islam and child abuse.

Another new partner of the Conservative’s in Europe, the Danish People’s Party MEP, Morten Messerschmidt also has a criminal record for suggesting a link between ethnicity and sexual violence. In 2001 he placed an advert in a Danish magazine saying: “Mass rapes, Gross violence, Insecurity, Forced marriages, Oppression of women, gang crime. This is what a multi-ethnic society offers us.” In addition, the Danish People’s Party has called on European countries to accept the outcome of the recent illegitimate referendum held in Crimea.

I believe it is vital that the Conservative Party is now open with the British public about the dubious, and indeed extremist, views of your new partners in Europe. Even in 2009, when David Cameron sought to use his alliances in the European Parliament to appease his Eurosceptic backbenchers, he nevertheless rejected an alliance with the Finns Party and the Danish People’s Party because of their extreme views. He must now answer the question of what has changed his mind since then.

In opposition in 2006, as part of his attempt to reposition the Tory brand, David Cameron promised to change and to halt his party’s tradition of obsessively “banging on about Europe”. Yet three years later in 2009 he took Conservative MEPs out of the mainstream EPP group because they we too ‘pro-European’. Today’s decision by his Conservative MEPs to join forces with Finns Party and Danish Peoples Party clearly now marks the final nail in the coffin of the so-called Tory modernisation project.

Despite David Cameron’s promises to the contrary, the Conservative Party have once again been drawn to the fringes of the EU and the extremes of the political debate in Europe.

This goes to the heart of Britain’s place and influence in Europe. Just when Britain needs to maximise allies in Europe to help secure crucial victories for Britain, the only allies that your MEPs will be able to turn to are those on the outside of the major groupings, and whose views are rejected by many mainstream political leaders across Europe.

Given the public interest in this issue, I am releasing this letter to the media.

Yours,

Gareth Thomas MP
Shadow Minister for Europe

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