Right-wing Euro MP guests force Conservatives on to the defensive

Published on Tuesday 6 October 2009 21:58

THE Conservatives were forced to defend their new allies in Brussels yesterday as two right-wing eastern European MEPs appeared in person at the party conference.

Shadow Europe minister Mark Francois threw a protective arm around Roberts Zile amid accusations that his Latvian party had Nazi sympathies.

Mr Zile also took to the floor at the fringe meeting to dismiss the claims, suggesting they were more typical of the Soviet-era Kremlin than a western democracy.

His comments were a swipe at Foreign Secretary David Miliband who singled out Mr Zile, and the For Fatherland and Freedom party he leads, for criticism at last week's Labour conference.

Michal Kaminski, the Polish leader of the Tories' new caucus in Brussels, whom Mr Miliband accused of having an "antisemitic, neo-Nazi" past, also appeared briefly.

The two MEPs' attendance in Manchester has been condemned by Jewish groups and Labour figures, and today's fringe meeting was not widely advertised.

The Tories are facing mounting questions about their withdrawal from the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament to join a new caucus with strongly anti-federalist views.

Mr Miliband used his Labour conference speech to accuse the group's Latvian element of taking part in celebrations of the Adolf Hitler's Waffen-SS.

Mr Zile rejected the claim yesterday, insisting there was only a commemoration for the Latvian war dead who had been conscripted by the Nazis.

Comedians Stephen Fry and Eddie Izzard yesterday joined the Unite union's leadership in stepping up the pressure on David Cameron over their appearance. In an open letter to the Tory leader, they accused Mr Kaminski of "homophobia". They said his attendance undermined the conference's first gay and lesbian event.