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		Free at last! January 2 2006 Cameron is set to take Tory MEPs out of the EPP group David Cameron is absolutely firm in his principled decision that Tory MEPs should leave the EPP. He is absolutely right that we should not make euro-sceptic noises in the UK while we cosy-up to the federalists in Brussels (as I and a number of colleagues have argued since 1999). Cameron has given Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague the job of implementing his decision, and William is looking forward to the task with relish. But there is some foot-shuffling amongst a number of MEPs. They say that the City Fathers of Limerick passed three resolutions: (1) To build a new jail; (2) To build the new jail from the materials of the old jail; (3) To keep the old jail in use until the new one was finished. Some distinguished Tory MEPs are taking a similar line. Of course they will accept David Cameron's instruction to leave the EPP - but only when a new centre-right group is in place. But as they know (or ought to know), it is hugely difficult to form a new group without first leaving the old one. Again and again, over six years and under three Party leaders, we have had exploratory discussions with like-minded MEPs. We cannot cry wolf again. They want no more exploratory discussions. When we put our chips on the table, they will join us. This could mean Tory MEPs sitting as independents for a short interregnum. Some of them are angrily insisting that "they won't sit with the fascists or racists". By this they mean that some unsavoury types like Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Robert Kilroy-Silk, currently sit as independents. But the independents in the European parliament are not a group (although the parliament seeks to treat them as a group for admin purposes). They have no leader and no meetings. As an independent for the last six months, I have never sat in a meeting with Le Pen or Signora Mussolini, nor would I do so. There is absolutely no doubt that we can form a viable group in the parliament of moderate, centre-right, nation-state MEPs, and there is absolutely no question of sitting with extremists. It is mischievous for some of our colleagues to demand we publish the names of these MEPs now. They currently sit in other major groups, and will not thank us for publishing their names before we have moved ourselves. The reactionaries in the Conservative delegation -- those determined to cling to the status quo and the EPP -- argue that membership of the group achieves "influence". Indeed it does. But sadly, it does not achieve Conservative influence within the EPP group. It achieves EPP influence over the Conservatives. It is because of the EPP that we Tory MEPs have never delivered for the Party as we should have done. It is because of the EPP that we have failed to slow the pace of European integration, or to develop the clear alternative vision we need, the vision of a flexible Europe of independent, democratic states, of a Europe based solely on free trade and voluntary intergovernmental cooperation. It is because of the EPP that I personally have never been able to do the job I set out to do when I stood for the European parliament in 1999, or at least nothing like so well as I should have liked. I have seen a dramatic difference since I was expelled from the EPP in June 2005, and sat as an independent (in parliamentary terms -- of course in UK terms I remain a fully-paid-up, card-carrying member of the Conservative Party). By a happy chance, my expulsion from the EPP coincided with the British Presidency of the EU. During the Presidency, Tony Blair came to address the parliament on three occasions -- in June, October and December. On every one of these high-profile occasions, I was the first British Conservative to speak. In October, I was the only Conservative to speak before Blair left the chamber. In December, I was the only scheduled Conservative speaker at all. And my speech in December achieved the widest media coverage of my career -- terrestrial and satellite TV, all the national radio stations and major national dailies. Had I still been in the EPP, I should not have had a cat-in-hell's chance of speaking in any of these debates. So much for "influence". I and a number of like-minded colleagues have campaigned against our EPP membership since July 1999, under three successive party leaders. Yet despite our profound reservations, we accepted EPP membership, out of a sense of loyalty and Party discipline, for six and a half long years (bear in mind that in my own case, I never resigned from the EPP -- I was expelled!). Now that David Cameron is at last taking us out of the EPP, it is the time for the other side of the delegation to show similar loyalty and Party discipline. Throughout those 6½ years, we were repeatedly told that we were obsessive about the EPP, that it did not matter, that no one cared about it on the doorstep. Yet now that David Cameron is set to take us out of the EPP, these same people are telling us that it really does matter after all. I myself have experienced some mean-spirited -- indeed downright vitriolic -- comment from colleagues, especially from the South West, on my own situation since I became an independent in June 2005. (It is a sad feature of the human condition that we particularly resent those whom we see doing the things that we know, in our hearts, we really should have done ourselves). Cameron's decision will have huge benefits for the Party. Not least is the fact that it has finally forced the EU fellow-travellers in our delegation to come out of the closet. No longer can they come back to the UK every five years, make a mildly euro-sceptic re-selection speech, get re-elected, and go back to Brussels to cosy-up to the federalists for another term. Now everyone in the Party knows who they are. If they choose to defy David Cameron's authority, if they insist on raining on our new Leader's parade, Party members will not forgive them. The Party will make its displeasure felt at re-selection in 2008, if not before.