Polish Law & Justice Party looks set to bolster Eurosceptic grouping

The Telegraph's Jonathan Isaby happened to bump into representatives of the Polish Law & Justice Party (PiS) yesterday, who were in Westminster for meetings with Hague and Cameron. Isaby says it looks likely that they'll join the Czech Civic Democrats and the Bulgarian Union of Democratic Forces in the Movement for European Reform:

"From what I gather, it now looks like their party is extremely keen to sign up to the new group and I am led to believe that an announcement on this front should not be far off."

The socially conservative, fiscally centrist party is best known for the Kaczyński twins who for a while occupied the positions of President and Prime Minister between them.  They will be controversial allies for David Cameron.

Related links: Dan Hannan MEP offers seven reasons why we must leave the EPP and fellow MEP Caroline Jackson describes the search for new alliances as A Hopeless Quest.

Comments

[R.Baker.]

Absolute poppycock to try and push to the electorate that David Cameron and William Hague are in any way Eurosceptics.People are no longer going to fall for this one.This is partly why we are seen as being dishonest by many voters.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Dreadful news.

[David]

Oh joy. The party that says homosexuals will lead to the downfall of civilisation and shouldn't work with children.

This won't create an open goal, oh no......

[IRJMilne]

Good news, so long as they want the same European reforms that we do.

[Sean Fear]

"Oh joy. The party that says homosexuals will lead to the downfall of civilisation and shouldn't work with children."

That's true of several of our existing "allies". The creation of a eurosceptic bloc in the EU Parliament can only be a good thing.

[David]

Not if it means dealing with people like that. I just imagine if they said it about Jews.

[Sean Fear]

We'd find precious few people to work with in the EU Parliament then. FWIW, I doubt if the average voter is terribly concerned about the views of our allies in the EU Parliament.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Sean,

It's certainly true that one or two parties in the EPP are socially conservative. But to compare them with the L&J Party in Poland makes them look like ultra-liberals.

[Andrew Woodman]

I'm not that comfortable that the party is allied to extremists, but that's why we need to form a new grouping.

This all sums up the madness of a federal Europe. I'm sure most parties are allied to other parties that have hardly anything in common with.

[Adam in London]

I feel physically sick at the thought of deliberately choosing to align ourselves with these nutjobs. They continually embarressed their country when in government, they will continually embarress us.

Their record is not that endearing. They used the offices of government to launch McCarthyite witch hunts, slowed down privatisation, proposed Rule by Presidential Decree, it supports more European integration on the economy and defence, and launched an investigation of all gay groups in Poland just in case they were paedophiles.

They are eurosceptic only in so far as it allows them to annoy the Germans. They seriously deployed the argument that Poland ought to have more votes in the Qualified Majority Voting system because there would be several million more Poles today if the Nazis hadn't killed so many Poles in the Second World War.

We should have nothing to do with them. Our future partners have got to Fianna Fail of Ireland, the Conservatives of Sweden and Denmark, and the Civic Platform parties of Eastern Europe.

[Sam S]

I'd rather have a smaller grouping rather than join with a bunch of bigots.

[pretm]

Can I just ask where all this knowledge about L&J Party is coming from?

Any source for: "investigation of all gay groups in Poland" for example?

"launch McCarthyite witch hunts" Against?

I am sorry but I read some articles in UK press about previous Polish government, and I cannot believe how much of propaganda has been used, that was coming from Polish opposition (now in power).

[Praguetory]

Alliances we form are with a view to the common goal of European reform. Their national policies are utterly beside the point.

[Sean Fear]

Exactly, Praguetory.

Think of the sort of regimes that this country has formed alliances with, when necessary.

[Praguetory]

I have seen politicians from Slovakia's KDH who strongly oppose homosexuality. They are part of the EPP... Forming a grouping does not mean endorsing each other's domestic policies. On the other hand it is disappointing that we can't persuade the Polish ruling party to join us whose domestic programme is economically far to the right of the British Conservative party.

[David]

Shows how mad some people's priorities are, then. Doing deals with these types, simply for the cause of Euroscepticism. Disgraceful.

[Gareth]

It's not only utter nonsense that we can ignore the domestic polices of our political allies, it's bad politics. It may be trite to say it but it is nevertheless true, that we would never consider forming an alliance with a racist party whilst we seem to be sanguine about forming one with a homophobic party. Unfortunately, the usual bunch of Euro-sceptic fanatics can't see past anything other than their loathing of the EPP.

[Sean Fear]

In our dealings with the EU, there *is* nothing more important, David.

Of the constituent members of the EPP, Forza Italia, the Spanish Popular Party, the Christian Social Union, the French UMP, the Slovak KDH aren't exactly famed for their liberal views on homosexuality.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Very well said, Gareth.

[Sally Roberts]

David @ 15:56 - very well said!

I'm not happy about this but assume it will be for those running the Movement for European Reform to decide whether this Party actually joins it or not.

[johnC]

[email protected] makes a valid comment which those of us familiar with the left-leaning media in the UK and its denigration of our party would do well to note: how much of what we hear about this party comes from established fact and how much from the shrill hysteria of its political and media opponents ? One person's 'homophobia' is another person's traditional Catholicism.

[Sean Fear]

Well, they did object to the Teletubbies, for fear that Tinky Winky was morally corrupting, John C.

My attitude towards this is much the same as Churchill's towards the Devil, if Hitler had invaded Hell.

[Dale]

Was it not Senhor José Manuel Barrosso that said:

"In politics you have to meet people your mother would not like to see you with."?

[David Parker]

I agree with R. Baker. Promises to leave the EPP, even if fulfilled,are no more than a token sop to the eurosceptic majority of Conservative supporters.
The European Parliament has little affect upon European Commission policy and exists merely as an incredibly expensive charade of European "democracy".
It is high time that Cameron, Hague and similar felllow travellers stopped pretending that the EU can be 'reformed' from within, by a like minded group of member states. The "European Project" was deliberately designed, from its inception, so that this would not be possible, other than by disbanding the whole organisation.
So far from reforming this situation, the
'Lisbon Lies' Treaty merely reinforces it.

The majority of Conservative supporters (and probably of the British populace) are mildly eurosceptic, though only a few of us have studied the EU in depth, or understand its full implications. Instead of encouraging a full and open public debate, the leaders of all three major political parties have consistently and deliberately fostered this ignorance and played down the importance of Britain's relationship with the EU.

This allows them to impart their own EU electoral spin, with less chance of informed contradiction.More importantly, however, it also helps them to disguise the fact that, unless brought to heel, the progess of EU integration will represent the greatest centralisation of government and transfer of powers from people to politicians(high or low grade), ever to have been achieved withlout a military conquest or bloody revolution.
Doubtless, some(most?)of our politicians would consider that a worthy objective.

[Dale]

Didn't we work with the USSR to defeat germany during the second world war?

Didn't we just work with china over north korea?

Are we not now working with china in regard to climate change????????????

I doubt that any sane person on this planet could say that the polish law and justice party (as unpalatable as it is) is worse than the communist party of the soviet union or the communist party people's republic of china. Yet we worked with them to achieve our own neccessery aims.

[Sean Fear]

I wouldn't disagree with that.

[Tapestry]

Great to hear of progress on the quit the EPP front. It will do much for Cameron's and Hague's credibility that their promise is kept.

[true outsider]

These objecions are childish (or insofar as they are not they're for us sititng iwht no other groups Law and justice is no more antigay than the KDH or indeed the Greek conservaitves- as for gay adoption t he tories opposed it and the

as for the "mccarthyism" law and justice typically have been incompetn at doing that- but all it's trying to do is reveal collaborators wiht the Old Communist sytem- we alwasy criticsise the early Gemran Democrats for not doing enough to move away from the collabators with terror-why the oppostite criticism for the Poles?

I have loads of problems wiht Law and Justice(generally diffent than the ones stated here) but the fact is this is about europe-what matters is they're euro-sceptic the whole point

It's worry ing that so many people in this party regard electoral pledges and the independence of this country as less importnat than meanginless pandering/ sharing in Guardian reader/ Times editorialists values.

[Andrew Lilico]

Except in the case of the most extreme domestic unpleasantness (amongst which I think it would be rather hysterical to include things like a "march for the traditional family" or whatever PiS called its somewhat eccentric anti-homosexual gathering), I would have thought that the key issue in forming such a political grouping is whether we have sufficient common ground at the European Parliamentary level. It is, after all, a European Parliamentary grouping.

So, in essence
a) I don't think it is reasonable in any sense to assume that by forming a European Parliamentary grouping with PiS we should be taken as in any way endorsing PiS' domestic policies.
b) We have reasonably compatible European goals. So
c) There should be potential scope for us to work together.

[pretm]

@johnC

I will try to give an example of spin that was used to label them as "homophobic".

Most of those claims came from the article in The Guardian. It quoted a member from gay community saying "thousands of gays" escaped to UK fearing government. And Poland is like Germany in 1930s.

There was no data to back those claims. And when he was confronted about what was written in The Guardian by Polish press, he backtracked.

One of the arguments used, was that a gay club was closed in Warsaw by local authorities, back in 2005. Yes, it was closed, but not because it was gay club. It was because they did not pay the rent for many months, and owners finally lost (in court) the right to stay there. And so it was easier to present this a homophobic, then to say it is because of the lack of money.

Changes in local government (for more centric party) did not brought the club back. It is still about the money.

And it is worth to point out that most of the controversial views, that where associated with L&J were coming from a different far right wing party that was in coalition.

Of course this all does not mean L&J is pro-gay, but to describe them as homophobic on basis of what The Guardian writes, would be a mistake.

[DavisFan]

What nonsense is this.

I myself am a great supporter of the Law and Justice Party. Their sound views are to be applauded.

I wonder if they have read the works of my favourite Tory, MR ROGER HELMER MEP, who has written an excellent book which explains that homosexuality is caused by the same mechanism as that which conditions ducks to follow their mothers.

Their non-PC opposition to the namby-pamby beancounters is what we want!

I would vote for the Kaczyńskis. Their views are SOUND mainstream Tory views.

[johnC]

'Well, they did object to the Teletubbies, for fear that Tinky Winky was morally corrupting'

Very restrained of them. I would argue that a substantial precentage of the BBC's output was morally corrupting - remember Jerry Springer The Opera ? - and most of the rest was mindnumbing drivel.

Tinky Winky is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

" wonder if they have read the works of my favourite Tory, MR ROGER HELMER MEP, who has written an excellent book which explains that homosexuality is caused by the same mechanism as that which conditions ducks to follow their mothers.

Their non-PC opposition to the namby-pamby beancounters is what we want!

I would vote for the Kaczyńskis. Their views are SOUND mainstream Tory views."

I'm biting my tongue here. Ever wondered, DavisFan, why Davis lost out to David Cameron and why Helmet was booted out the Party?

[Mr Angry]

So, seemingly we should only choose our allies in the European Parliament on the basis of their views on homosexuality, at least that is the effect of what a number of obviously great thinkers above are saying.

What is really important is that we leave the EPP and stand firmly against the "European project", quite why we especially need to be allied with anyone, other than to ensure that our MEPs can continue to enjoy their gravy train to the full is somewhat beyond me.

[IRJMilne]

"it [L&J] supports more European integration on the economy and defence"

Can someone refute or prove that this is true? If so, why are we working with them?

Meanwhile -

"I wonder if they have read the works of my favourite Tory, MR ROGER HELMER MEP, who has written an excellent book which explains that homosexuality is caused by the same mechanism as that which conditions ducks to follow their mothers."

I'm certainly not "pro-gay", but I don't even understand this. Ducks? What?

[Comstock]

Didn't we work with the USSR to defeat germany during the second world war?

Didn't we just work with china over north korea? ..........
we worked with them to achieve our own neccessery aims.

You can hardly equate the need to defeat Nazi Germany in times of war or need to rid North Korea of it's evil murdering regime with the need to find an ally in the European Parliament.

And fair play to those tories on here (like Justin Hinchcliffe) who have condemned this move.

[jonneyboy]

Justin H
"I'm biting my tongue here. Ever wondered, DavisFan, why Davis lost out to David Cameron and why Helmet was booted out the Party?"

Roger Helmer is a true tory. He only had the whip withdrawn.

Roger speaks sound common sense mostly.

But back to the basic. Cameron must honour his pledge it was the one and only promise he made in his election campaign and made enough euro realists like me vote for him. He has to deliver otherwise his election was a fraud.

[Dale]

"Ever wondered, DavisFan, why Davis lost out to David Cameron"

Was it because David Cameron pledged to withdraw the conservative meps from the epp and David Davis didn't?

[Dale]

"You can hardly equate the need to defeat Nazi Germany in times of war or need to rid North Korea of it's evil murdering regime with the need to find an ally in the European Parliament"

Here was me thinking that since they gave up their nuclear weapons program, we were propping up the evil murdering regime of north korea.

BTW I notice that you conveniantly edited out the part of my quote that you could not refute.

I, like most other british people, havent the slightest interest in polish domestic politics. I think their might be an argument against sitting with these people if their domestic policy was not popular DOMESTICALLY, which as far as I am aware, nobody is suggesting, it is the party of the former prime minister and current president.

As a person that beleives in democracy, I beleive that the views of the polish electorate, as long as they only effect poland, are of no consequence and no concern to me. If the polish want to be homophobic then that is their business, just because I am not currently on the streets of warsaw protesting doesn't mean I support their views.

It is one thing to dismiss a fringe party, but quite another to dismiss a governning or major opposition party.

[Dale]

"You can hardly equate the need to defeat Nazi Germany in times of war or need to rid North Korea of it's evil murdering regime with the need to find an ally in the European Parliament"

Here was me thinking that since they gave up their nuclear weapons program, we were propping up the evil murdering regime of north korea.

BTW I notice that you conveniantly edited out the part of my quote that you could not refute.

I, like most other british people, havent the slightest interest in polish domestic politics. I think their might be an argument against sitting with these people if their domestic policy was not popular DOMESTICALLY, which as far as I am aware, nobody is suggesting, it is the party of the former prime minister and current president.

As a person that beleives in democracy, I beleive that the views of the polish electorate, as long as they only effect poland, are of no consequence and no concern to me. If the polish want to be homophobic then that is their business, just because I am not currently on the streets of warsaw protesting doesn't mean I support their views.

It is one thing to dismiss a fringe party, but quite another to dismiss a governning or major opposition party.

[Sean Fear]

You can hardly equate the need to defeat Nazi Germany in times of war or need to rid North Korea of it's evil murdering regime with the need to find an ally in the European Parliament"

But then, you can't equate Law and Justice with the sort of people we had to ally with in those cases.

It appears that several (perhaps a majority) of our current EPP partners don't like homosexuality very much. It is curious that this is fine, so long as parties that dislike homosexuality are europhile, but becomes a big issue if they are eurosceptic.

[John Wilkin]

Comstock - "You can hardly equate the need to defeat Nazi Germany in times of war or need to rid North Korea of it's evil murdering regime with the need to find an ally in the European Parliament."

And you can hardly compare the Law and Justice Party with Stalin

[Comstock]

"As a person that beleives in democracy, I beleive that the views of the polish electorate, as long as they only effect poland, are of no consequence and no concern to me. If the polish want to be homophobic then that is their business"

Would you consider it 'their business' if they wanted to stone Christians, or send the Jews to gas chambers? Would that merely be a domestic concern? If not, where do you draw the line?

In any event this isn't a just a question of not getting involved, it is a question of actively condoning this behaviour by choosing to enter into an alliance with this party. Would you go into coalition with Le Penn, for instance, and if not where do you draw the line?

[Dale]

The last time I checked Le Pen wasn't the president of france, he was a marginalised politician on the fringes of french politics. He had also been found guilty of many crimes regarding race and expelled from the european parliament. None of which can be said for law and justice or its members.

Poland, or more prescisely, the previous polish government have not been found to be in breach of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

I draw the line at the same point as almost every country in the world. The council of Europe, The European Court of Human rights, and United Nations. When they have a problem with law and justice, so will I.

BTW why don't you go over to labour home and ask why the african national congress is allowed to be alligned with the british labour party? Surely there unpleasent views, corruption, human rights abuses and support for terrorism makes them unsuitable bedfellows?

[Philip]

Comstock, I "draw the line" between fascists, racists, sending Jews to the gas chambers etc, and political parties who merely happen to hold to centuries-held Christian-based beliefs on sexual behaviour. Surely you understand the difference between 1940s Britain (including its then accepted norms of sexual behaviour) and Hitler's Germany? Maybe your implied association of those who hold traditional beliefs with fascists etc is another example of the attempts made to silence opponents of the current liberal view of sexual behaviour.

[Philip]

Anyway, another member for the alliance for reform must be good news. Any progress David Cameron makes towards building an alliance to reform the EU from being a centralising, controlling body with member states’ parliaments implementing EU law, to become instead a group of free sovereign nations trading and working together, must be welcome. My doubt, however, is whether such an alliance can succeed in bringing reform, how ever many parties are in the new grouping, so entrenched is the push for “ever closer union”, and as David Parker (1713) points out, the EU Parliament has little effect on the EU Commission, which seems to be the body which rules.

As for the Polish Law and Justice Party, why should their “social conservatism” be controversial for “Conservatives”? Surely a sense of right and wrong arising from unchanging Christian values to underpin a secure society is preferable to the removal of restraints of the each-person-do-as-they-please liberalism, and its socialist partner of diminution of personal responsibility and accountability (blame poverty…State dependency etc) that have contributed to the chaos we now see in Britain?

[Comstock]

"The last time I checked Le Pen wasn't the president of france, he was a marginalised politician on the fringes of french politics."

If electoral success is the measure of respectability, you'll have no problem going into alliance with the FPO (Freedom Party Austria), or indeed Hitler, were he still alive

I don't know much about Labour's alliance with the ANC (like I say time and time again I'm not a member of the Labour party), but I presume it dates back to the anti apartheid struggles. Anyway it isn't an active alliance in a parliament of the type being proposed here....

[Traditional Tory]

Forza Italia, the Spanish Popular Party, the Christian Social Union, the French UMP, the Slovak KDH aren't exactly famed for their liberal views on homosexuality

Nor are the rank-and-file members of the British Conservative Party, notwithstanding Cameron's recent febrile bout of PC windowdressing.

[James Maskell]

The PiS as I understand it are pretty hard right wing conservatives, far more to the right than what Cameron conservatism is supposed to be. As fr mainstream, they are only mainstream in that they form governments. Apart from that I would consider some of their views rather extreme. They have only recently been forced out of Government...

As for the Bulgarian UDF party, I thought they pulled out because they wished to stay in the EPP, much to the frustration of the Tories?

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

"As for the Bulgarian UDF party, I thought they pulled out because they wished to stay in the EPP, much to the frustration of the Tories?" - says it all really.

Let Helmer sit with the bigoted loons if he so wishes (he, incidentally, is the only Conservative MEP not in the EPP) but keep the other 26 MEPs in the main grouping.

[Dale]

"If electoral success is the measure of respectability, you'll have no problem going into alliance with the FPO (Freedom Party Austria), or indeed Hitler, were he still alive."

First of all, isn't a party of the epp in coalition with the freedom party of austria now? Second, you have failed contest my main points in regard to international condemnation, or even a single country expresses concern.

[IRJMilne]

We need to be in a grouping which is

a. opposed to "ever closer integration"
b. has right wing views on as many issues as possible (without becoming intolerably disreputable or loony)

We cannot remain in a grouping that supports further integration, as that runs against our principle policy regarding the EU.

But as I quoted earlier - one commentator above said that the Law & Justice party were in favour of further integration on, amongst other things, defence. If that is true then I don't see how they fit in.

[Dale]

"The PiS as I understand it are pretty hard right wing conservatives"

But that is the real trick isn't it, you DON'T understand it.

"As fr mainstream, they are only mainstream in that they form governments."

What other definition of mainstream could there possibly be.

"They have only recently been forced out of Government..."

So has forza Italia, losing an election means didly squat, The party still holds the presidency, the PRESIDENCY and unless I'm entirely mistaken neither law and justice or poland are on for human rights abuse, nor has anone in the world even suggested that they should be.

[William Humbold]

In any case, Free Europe by voting YES at http://www.FreeEurope.info!

[Comstock]

"First of all, isn't a party of the epp in coalition with the freedom party of austria now?"

Not anymore, Austria has a SDO/OVP grand coalition along the lines of Germany.

We aren't going to agree on this, but I think this matters. This isn't some minor domestic policy detail, this is about basic values of fair treatment for all sections of society, which is more important than some ruddy opportunistic alliance in the EU parliament.

To me, you have either changed to become a more progressive mainstream party or you are still stuck in the past and if you have changed you have to back that up with actions.

Sorry to swim against the tide, but this to me is even more important than Conway.

[Sean Fear]

I take it, that in the interests of consistency, you would regard it as being unacceptable for the Labour party to be in alliance, in the EU Parliament, with several Eastern bloc parties that were in power in the days of Soviet rule.

[Comstock]

Without knowing what those parties are, what they believe now and what their views on homosexuality are I can't comment on that.

And as I keep saying, I ain't a member of the Labour party......

[Sean Fear]

As to your last point, fair enough. But the Party of European Socialists contains member parties in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria who ruled under the Soviets (and who took a far harder line against homosexuals than Law & Justice did, when in power).

I'm willing to accept that in a democracy, they'd be much more heavily constrained than in a State where they had untrammelled power.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

There is, Corstock, a rather odd assumption that for those of us who oppose welcoming the Law and Justice Party must, somehow, be secret Labour or Lib Dem supporters. This, I can assure you Sean, is not the case! You even had the pleasure of campaigning with me in person! (-:

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

What Labour does, Sean, is a matter for them. I only care about what the Conservatives do and don't do!

[ToryJim]

who merely happen to hold to centuries-held Christian-based beliefs on sexual behaviour...

In 2005, Jarosław Kaczyński was reported to have said that homosexuals should not be teachers and to claim that "the affirmation of homosexuality will lead to the downfall of civilization"

It may be that some members of the Tory party share these views, but for some reason very few Tory MPs go public with this kind of stuff.

I wonder why that is?