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		Conservatives and the EU Constitution: Difficult Times Ahead European Journal - September 2006 David Cameron's decision to extend the link between Tory MEPs and the ultra-federalist EPP group until 2009 will have a profound and damaging impact on the Party's ability to oppose the EU Constitution. It is becoming increasingly clear that a key objective of Germany's six-month EU Presidency (starting January 2007), will be to seek implementation of the Constitution. By then, it is likely that the German Christian Democrat MEP Hans-Gert Poettering, currently leader of the EPP group, will be President of the parliament. We cannot be sure who the new EPP leader will be, but we can be sure it will be a passionate and committed federalist. Of course as everyone knows, there is simply no way that a British Conservative MEP could ever lead the EPP group, and as Charles Tannock MEP has repeatedly argued, it is difficult to justify membership of a group where, although the second largest delegation, we could never hope to lead. The conjunction of the German Presidency with Poettering's Presidency of the parliament, and the new EPP leader, will form a powerful and dangerous alignment of pro-Constitution forces. In key debates on the Constitution, a federalist EPP leader will speak on behalf of British Conservative MEPs. Conservatives will speak well down the pecking order, if at all. And when they do, the remarks of delegation leader Timothy Kirkhope MEP will be so nuanced, for fear of giving offence to his EPP comrades, that only a cryptologist will understand them. Conservative opposition to the Constitution will be lost in the background noise. So we see why the EPP is desperate to keep the Tories on board, and why senior EPP leaders, including Angela Merkel, have brought huge pressure to bear on potential partners, like the Czech ODS, to deter them from joining us in a new group. It is not just that they want the £½ million of funding that we bring, or the 27 member addition to the head-count. It is above all because they want to preserve their federalist monopoly, and to prevent the creation of a genuine opposition to their integrationist project for political union. Now that Cameron has abandoned his commitment to get us out of the EPP in "months, not years", we remain in baulk, unable to rally effective opposition to the greatest concentration of power in the EU's history. So what should Kirkhope do? As leader of the second-largest delegation in the EPP, he should be demanding a deal with the EPP under which British Conservatives would get a share of the group-leader speaking time. We were, after all, promised "respect for our distinctive position on Constitutional matters within the EPP". This is not without precedent. For example, in the ID group, the leadership speaking time is shared between Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde, and UKIP leader Nigel Farage. So we frequently see the humiliating sight of Farage, leading ten MEPs, speaking ahead of Kirkhope, who leads 27. Indeed even I, as an independent member, found that I was able to speak ahead of Kirkhope in several high-profile debates during the British Presidency (July/Dec 2005) Conservative membership of the EPP means, above all, that we are buried in the bowels of the beast, and unable to use our voice effectively for Conservative principles and values. It is worth reviewing the troubled history of our relationship with the EPP. I was first elected in 1999. Within a month, William Hague had negotiated the "Malaga Agreement", which set up the European Democrats (ED) sub-group within the EPP. According to the CCO press release, we had won 90% of what we wanted. The ED was to be, for all practical purposes, an independent group, merely linked to the EPP under a nominal administrative umbrella. So you can imagine my shock at our first delegation meeting when our then leader Edward McMillan-Scott said, in effect, "Phew! We got away with that one. Business as usual". It was the first time I got angry in a delegation meeting (though by no means the last!). The so-called ED was a mere fig-leaf, a virtual group that existed only in CCO press releases. After the 2001 General Election, IDS replaced Hague, and made a clear and principled decision to leave the EPP. He even sent the letter giving notice. But he made the vast tactical error of postponing implementation for three years, until the end of that parliament in 2004. This was a mistake: first, because it guaranteed a poisonous relationship with the EPP in the interim period; second, because it would have denied the new group the opportunity to jockey for position and for key committee posts in the run-up to the 2004 election; but most of all because it could be, and indeed was, overtaken by events. Come 2004, IDS was gone, and his letter forgotten. There is a precise and uncanny parallel between IDS's decision in 2001 and Cameron's decision in 2006. Both decided to put off the break for three years, until the next euro-election. And Cameron's decision is wrong for exactly the same three reasons as IDS's decision was wrong. They say that those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them, but surely five years is too short a period for amnesia to set in? We move on to Michael Howard's leadership. He too addressed the problem, and his preferred solution was to try to give real substance to the ED sub-group. It was to have its own resources and staffing, and create a real voice for change. In exchange for the EPP's agreement with his ED plans, Howard agreed that we should stay with the EPP until 2009, and this became a notorious commit-ment in our 2004 manifesto. (Incidentally, the EPP's total and cynical failure to deliver any part of their pledge surely voids the 2004 manifesto commitment, which is relied on by reactionary MEPs in the delegation to justify retaining the status quo). In the event, Howard had no more success with the ED than Hague had had. It remains a fiction, with no meetings, no budget, no staff, no officers, no policies, no objectives, nothing but a couple of half-hearted leaflets and a logo. It once requested funding from the EPP for a conference in Prague, but the EPP predictably refused, and the idea sank without trace. The ED was left to wither on the vine, as both the EPP and our delegation leadership intended it should. Now, in a fourth attempt to move the agenda forward, Cameron offers us a "Forum for European Reform" (and he has caused great offence to our key potential partners, the Polish Law & Justice Party, by failing to invite them to join the Forum as founder members). On paper, the Forum looks even flakier than the ED. It will not form part of a recognised parliamentary group. It will not be a transnational party (which could have attracted EU political funding). It remains to be seen whether it will have more real infrastructure than the zero-level of the ED. And presumably a key player in the Forum will be Timothy Kirkhope himself - a man who stood for election as delegation leader on an explicit commitment to frustrate Cameron's (then) EPP policy. Here we come to the heart of the Party's repeated failure to solve the EPP problem. On balance, Tory MEPs are much more favourable to the EU project than are Party members, or activists, or MPs (and arguably than the British people). They have therefore repeatedly and successfully thwarted attempts to form a new, anti-integrationist group. At every attempt, Party leaders have worked with representatives of the delegation leadership who have deliberately set out to sabotage each initiative. We have had Anthony Teasdale (an EPP staffer), and successive leaders Edward McMillan-Scott, Jonathan Evans and most recently Timothy Kirkhope in this role. Our potential partners are not naïve. They sense the vibes. If they see our Party leader proposing a deal, while the delegation leader covertly resists it, the whole proposal looks suspect. A man like Kirkhope, whose election platform was to stay with the EPP, is hardly an effective or credible advocate for a new group. One Tory MEP, Caroline Jackson, has already expressed the view that if Cameron couldn't deliver a new group in six months, he is unlikely to do so in three years. I fear she may be right. For years now, the Conservative Party has failed to rise to the challenge of Europe, failed to provide a clear and compelling voice for the independence and self-determination of our country. The Cameron leadership is clearly determined to keep Europe off the agenda, and for the fourth time in nine years has failed to resolve the challenge of the EPP. It is a profoundly disappointing record.