Everyone needs friends, but you must choose them carefully

Written by George Lyon and published in The Scotsman on Fri 21st Aug 2009

Scotland has always been an outward looking country. Whether it was the 'auld alliance' with France or less successful ventures like the Darien scheme, Scots have looked beyond our own borders in search of global partners and prosperity.

If the European elections taught us anything it is that Scots are no different today than in centuries of old. We continue to look beyond our own shores, to forge new partnerships and bring the jobs and investment home to Scotland that we need to emerge from the current recession stronger and more secure.

As Scotland's Liberal Democrat MEP, and the only new blood from Scotland to enter the European Parliament, it is this tradition I will adopt as a strong voice for Scotland in Europe.

Liberal Democrats, like Scots, are outward looking by nature. We want to use the European Parliament to our advantage as we recognise that Scotland will be stronger if we work with our neighbours.

Take climate change as an example. As Scotland's liberal MEP I will fight for the UK's share of European Energy Recovery Programme funding to develop carbon capture and storage technology to be awarded to Scotland. If successful, this would not only create jobs but make Scotland a centre of excellence for this new and important technology. This is just one of the many ways that Scotland can benefit from working with our European friends.

But friends should be honest with each other. While recognising the good, we must also root out the bad. The European Parliament is far from perfect. It is a bureaucratic behemoth in need of radical reform. But rather than abandon it as platform for change, as the Conservatives have done, Liberal Democrats will work to improve the institution from within.

The Conservatives attitude towards Europe is hugely disappointing. They believe that Scotland can turn away from our friends in Europe and face the current economic crisis, climate change, rising crime and terrorism alone. No single nation can tackle these cross border issues. There is strength in numbers and the Tories have turned their back on the protection offered by the European Parliament.

They have pulled out of the mainstream centre-right bloc that is home to Angela Merkel's and Nicolas Sarkozy's parties. By forming the rival European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR), the Tories have decided to leave mainstream politics and withdraw to the margins of Europe. This decision has left Scotland weaker by simultaneously muting the voice of one of Scotland's MEPs and tainting that voice with the company they keep.

The name of the group seems solid and sound, but in fact it is a rag-tag group of smaller parties and individuals that is inherently unstable. One spat over policy, or one defection or sacking would bring the group under the minimum requirement to form a group in the European Parliament. That would leave the Tories not just isolated but stranded.

Cracks in the grouping already appearing. Furious that the Tory MEP Edward McMillian-Scott had defeated his preferred candidate in an election for vice-president of the European Parliament, David Cameron expelled McMillan-Scott from the Conservative Party. Astonishingly, he then imposed a Polish MEP as leader of the ECR ahead of the leader of the Conservatives in the new grouping. Shakespeare would have struggled to write a tragedy of such magnitude.

The leader imposed by Cameron is Michal Kaminski, a Polish MEP representing the Law and Justice Party. In getting into bed with Mr Kaminski and his colleagues, the Conservatives are supporting people who have been openly homophobic, anti-Semitic and racist. For example, one Law and Justice Senator, denied that Auschwitz was a death camp. Artur Gorski, a Law and Justice Party MP, described President Obama's election last year as the "end of the civilisation of the white man". Mr Kaminski was himself a member of the National Rebirth of Poland party who the U.S. State Department class as anti-Semitic.

These are concerns that must be voiced as a matter of conscience. The fact that the Tories have not faced up to the nasty truth about their friends in the European Parliament is as disappointing as it is cowardly.

Everyone needs friends, but care must be taken with the company you keep. The Liberal Democrats will continue to fight for the global partners and prosperity that Scotland has sought in the past, and that we still need to face the many challenges before us in the future.