The newly-formed European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) is embroiled in a kerfuffle over a vice-presidency post in the European Parliament.
Edward McMillan-Scott, a UK Conservative, has been expelled from the Conservative Party after staging a renegade bid for the post.
His actions resulted in Michal Tomasz Kaminski, a Polish MEP and official candidate of the anti-federalist group for the post, not getting elected as one of the parliament’s 14 vice-presidents.
“Mr McMillan-Scott had his whip suspended when he indicated he was putting in his nomination for vice president of the European Parliament,” a spokesperson for the Conservatives told the Daily Telegraph.
The move exposes the divisions within the British Conservatives about the wisdom of moving away from its alliance of previous years with the European People’s Party – the EU’s assembly’s biggest political group – to set up a new faction with socially conservative allies, mainly from Poland.
A UK conservative, who strongly opposed the party setting up its own political shop in the parliament, Mr McMillan-Scott was not put forward by the ECR group but instead gained entry to the candidate list through the backing of 40 individual MEPs.
There is now speculation about whether Mr McMillan-Scott will be accepted in to the EPP as an independent British MEP, reducing membership of the ECR to 54 deputies.
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