'May contain nuts'? The reality behind the rhetoric surrounding the British Conservatives' new group in the European Parliament

Political Quarterly

Volumn 81, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 85-98

  Bale, Tim ^a   Hanley, Seán ^b   Szczerbiak, Aleks ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Conservative party; David Cameron; European Conservatives and Reformists; European Parliament; European Peoples' Party; Extremism

Indexed keywords

EID: 77949517303     PISSN: 00323179     EISSN: 1467923X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-923X.2009.02067.x     Document Type: Article

References (14)

1. Tim Bale, The Conservative Party: from Thatcher to Cameron, Cambridge, Polity, 2010.
2. Timothy Garton Ash 'The farce of Cameron's Latvian legion is bad for Britain and bad for Europe', Guardian, 11 June 2009. See also the Financial Times leader on 22 June 2009.
3. For more detailed (albeit pre-ECR) treatments of the politics and the practicalities of leaving the EPP-ED and forming a new group, see Philip Lynch and Richard Whitaker, 'A loveless marriage: The Conservatives and the European People's party', Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 61, no. 1, 2008, pp. 31-51.;
4. Andreas Maurer, Roderick Parkes and Markus Wagner, 'Explaining group membership in the European Parliament: the British Conservatives and the Movement for European Reform', Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 15, no. 2, 2008, pp.246-62..
5. Ian Traynor, 'EU allies warn Cameron over rightwing pact', Guardian, 12 May 2009.
6. Nick Cohen, 'Cameron can't run away from Europe much longer: there's nothing compassionate about the friends the Conservative leader is making on the Continent', Observer, 17 May 2009.
7. Ian Traynor, 'Anti-gay, anti-German and climate-change deniers: meet Cameron's new friends', Guardian, 3 June 2009.
8. Andrew Grice and Vanessa Mock, 'Racists may plague Tory Europe Group', Independent, 20 June 2009.
9. Sean Hanley, The New Right in the New Europe: Czech Transformation and Right-wing Politics, 1989-2006, London, Routledge, 2006.
10. The authors gratefully acknowledge the advice of Richard Mole and Allan Sikk on this section.
11. Derk-Jan Eppink, Life of a European Mandarin: Inside the Commission, Tielt, Lannoo, 2007.
12. For his rebuttal, see http://conservative-home.blogs.com/platform/2009/08/michal-kaminski-the-allegations-that-i-am-a-racist-or-an-antisemite-are-disgusting-and-beyond-offens.html
13. For a wider discussion, see Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart, eds, Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism. Vol 1 & 2
14. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008. On the likelihood that the Conservative party after the next election will be more Eurosceptic than ever, see http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/2009/07/pronuclear-gay-friendly-barely-unionist-very-eurosceptic-meet-the-next-generation-of-tory-mps.html