Although the vast majority of Tory MEPs voted against the AfD joining, they were outvoted by their partners in the ECR. Nonetheless, the top line is that this is not going to go down well in Germany, and the Conservatives and David Cameron should brace themselves for a lot of backlash.
Germany's Die Welt leads on the home page of its website with "British Conservatives cooperate with AfD."
Leading financial daily Handeslblatt also leads with the story on its front page, with the headline, "Britain knights the AfD."
It is also front-page news on the website of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, under the headline, "AfD to be in a faction with the Tories in future".
Süddeutsche hasn't missed it either. On their front page, the story is written up as "The AfD docks with Cameron's Conservatives."
Spiegel also puts it on their front page, arguing, "Merkel forced Cameron to say no, but the European Conservatives thought otherwise: The AfD is now a member of their faction."
As we have argued before, Berlin is London's most important ally in achieving a reformed EU. And news of the AfD in the Tories' Conservative group could prove to be a major stumbling block in that process.
Cameron may have become weaker, not able to stop the AFD, and maybe soon not able to stop Juncker for the European Commission, but in the European Council, the most powerful EU institution, he can still join with Merkel and others to push for a reform agenda.
ReplyDelete"pretty condemning"?
ReplyDeleteThe rules about party-groups does seem to create some news :-)
ReplyDeleteBut are those rules really fit for purpose?
If the purpose of the rules is to keep the established political parties in power and set up with benefits then it would appear that they are fit for purpose.
Jesper -
ReplyDeleteThe last change to the rules on groups was proposed by the eurofanatic Labour MEP Richard Corbett, and they were intended to make life difficult for dissident parties like UKIP but also the Tories.
It seems that they may now have had the intended effect for UKIP, but as far as the Tories are concerned it seems that their unscrupulous efforts to overcome the restrictions by inviting previously unacceptable parties to join their group have now landed them with an unanticipated problem.
"As we have argued before, Berlin is London's most important ally in achieving a reformed EU."
ReplyDeleteIt is ludicrous to suppose that Merkel is a friend of the British people and she would want to help us; on the contrary, in case it hasn't been noticed she has poured sewage over us; and how much more sewage will she have to pour over us before it becomes clear even to the most deluded that she is actually an enemy of the British people?
And the more the Tory party tries to ally itself with her the more obvious it becomes that those leading that party are also enemies of the British people.
So what I read from this is that the Tory Party in Britain is a pro-EU party although it has managed to con anti-EU parties like the moderate Danish Folk Party, to join their group, when in fact the Danish Folk party would have been better off and more effective joining the UKIP group which also includes the Italian Five Star Movement. Cameron is in league with Merkel in their project to federalise Europe and remove democratic rights from the people. You cannot have a federal Europe run by the unelected European Commission with appointed and unaccountable leaders such as Juncker and then pretend to the people that they want to reform the EU. It is stuff and nonsense. The EU is behaving, looking and smelling
ReplyDeletemore and more like a dictatorship and at some point there will be civil war because the only way to prevent war and conflict is to restore democracy, and to do that would kill off the EU. The EU won't accept that so we have a catch 22 situation.
Oh dear Dave, yet another screw up. But never mind, maybe Angela will still let you make the tea and you can go for another nice trip in a rowing boat with her and all will be well!
ReplyDeleteEven if these Machiavellian antics are an acceptable price to EUSSR fan Dave of the UK's membership of this ghastly organization, I suspect that they will serve to convince more and more of his party's MP's (and those few of the British public who can be bothered to follow them) that the UK will be 'better off out'. So, keep it up guys, your acting as a recruiting agent for UKIP.
NO!. One minority part embraces AfD.
ReplyDeleteOne more nail in Cameron's coffin.
Would it be a good idea to break away again? Would it even be possible?
ReplyDeleteTake the dissenters from ECR, take the dissenters from EPP (not all are happy with the current politics) and form yet another group. Then the Tories wouldn't be in a group with AfD but the EPP might become weakened...