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Labour's unsavoury Euro friends


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/21/labour-europe-
kaminski-poland

Labour's unsavoury Euro friends

Before complaining too loudly about Michal Kaminski, Labour should look
at its own dubious connections in Europe
* Harry Phibbs - guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 October 2009

"Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but
considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" asks St Matthew. A
very good question for our foreign secretary David Miliband. He has
been busy denouncing the British Conservatives for forming an alliance
in the European parliament with Latvian, Czech, Polish and other Euro
MPs who share the Tories' sceptical outlook rather more than their
erstwhile Christian Democrat allies.

Miliband claims that the new allies from the east have some unsavoury
extremist connections. The accusation against the Latvian Fatherland
and Freedom party, that they "celebrate Waffen SS veterans", has rather
run out of steam. They attend an annual commemoration of all Latvia's
war victims, an official remembrance day attended by every non-Russian
political party in Latvia.

Rather more effort has gone into denouncing Michal Kaminski, the Polish
MEP from the Law and Justice party who is leader of the new group.
There has been some effort to brand him homophobic. This is because he
used the term pedaly, a slang term for homosexuals that is, or at any
rate was when he used it in 2000, in common usage including among
Polish politicians. There is some dispute over whether it is equivalent
to saying "fags" or "queers" or something rather less derogatory, but
Kaminiski has agreed not to use the term in future as he does not wish
to give offence. By the way, I used to sometimes use the term
"Polacks", under the impression it was equivalent to "Aussies" or
"Kiwis". When I was gently told that Polack was an offensive term I
stopped using it. Kaminski says he is proud that Poland was the first
European country to decriminalise homosexuality, in 1928, that he has
gay friends and that he has "nothing against" civil partnerships.

But the main thrust has been to accuse him of antisemitism. This has
been based on two pieces of evidence. First, that he opposed an apology
on behalf of the Polish people for the massacre of Jews by Poles as
well as Germans which took place at Jedwabne. But this opposition was
based on his view that those individuals involved in the massacre were
guilty, rather than it being a matter of collective guilt. He regards
the massacre as shameful.

Second, when Kaminski was 14 years old, a time when there was no open
opposition, he joined the first anti-communist group he came across,
the National Revival of Poland (NOP). This subsequently became an
antisemitic party, but he had left by the age of 17. So this
involvement doesn't even prove that was an antisemitic teenager, let
alone that he is antisemitic now.

Still, it would have been better if Kaminski hadn't joined NOP, if he
hadn't used the word pedaly. These were misjudgments. But what about
the beam in Miliband's eye? A look at the lineup of MEPs in the
socialist group of the European parliament shows that they are mad, bad
and dangerous to know. There's Romania's Social Democratic party, whose
members include Radu Mazare, the mayor of Constanta, who dressed up as
a Nazi at a fashion show, and was strongly criticised by Jewish groups
as a result. From Ireland we have in the socialist group (having
defected from the communist group) Proinsias De Rossa (born Francis
Ross), a former member of the IRA. He says he "can't remember" whether
or not he wrote to the Soviets asking for money. He'll forget his own
name next.

Then, since the Labour party is so interested in Polish MEPs, it might
care to explain why, in December 2004, it welcomed into its ranks two
MEPs from the Self Defence of the Republic party, Bogdan Golik and
Wieslaw Kuc, although Kuc left, leaving Golik behind. This party is led
by Andrzej Lepper, recipient of two honorary degrees from the
antisemitic Interregional Academy of Personnel Management - an outfit
that counts the American white supremacist David Duke as an honorary
professor. Lepper has multiple convictions for assault and his party
anthem once featured the line "this land is your land, this land is my
land [and] we won't let anyone punch us in the face".

Before June, also sitting in the socialist group was a former communist
Italian MEP called Giulietto Chiesa, whose main concern was promoting
his 9/11 conspiracy theory that it was all a put-up job by the
Americans. Thankfully, the Polish Self Defence party was wiped out in
the European elections and Chiesa, who went to stand in Latvia, also
lost his seat. This is to the credit of the Polish and Latvian
electorates - but no thanks to the Socialist MEPs, who were happy to
shelter them in their ranks.

Nor do they show much sign of having changed. They continue to sit
alongside the Slovak Social Democrats (SMER), who share power with the
neo-Nazi Slovak National party, which is open in its admiration for
Jozef Tiso, the wartime ruler of fascist Slovakia. It is as if Labour
councillors had entered a coalition with the BNP.

What of the Bulgarian Socialist party, who Labour MEPs also snuggle up
to? Its leader, Sergei Stanishev, condemned Bulgaria's first gay pride
march, declaring his disapproval of "the manifestations and
demonstrations of such orientations". Many of the eastern European
parties have their roots in the communist dictatorships of the old
Warsaw Pact. The Hungarian Socialist party, the successor to the
Hungarian communists, is led by Ferenc Gyurcsány. He was chief of staff
for his predecessor Péter Medgyessy, who was once a communist
counter-espionage officer under the code name D-209.

There is nothing particularly new about the European parliament being
stuffed with weirdos. It's not just the socialists, of course. The
Christian Democrat grouping, the EPP, that the Tories have ditched,
include Mussolini's heirs in the National Alliance - now absorbed into
Berlusconi's People of Freedom party. The Lib Dems have got some
oddballs in their group. What all this mudslinging at the Tories comes
down to is that the European establishment dislike the prospect of a
mainstream, respectable Eurosceptic grouping emerging. The double
standards involved in making the attacks are quite staggering.