More like this
Stephen Fry attacks Tories over Kaminski
Backlash at Cameron’s backing for ‘homophobic’ Polish nationalist
A backlash against the Conservative party's controversial alliance in Europe with an ultra-right Polish party known for its homophobic views, threatened to disrupt the Tory conference yesterday on the day the party's leader Michal Kaminski visited Manchester.
The actor Stephen Fry led the charge, demanding on Channel 4 News that the Tories disassociate themselves from the "unpleasantly homophobic" Polish Law and Justice party.
"It seems extraordinary that the modern Tory party, in which I fully believe in terms of its acceptance of gay people, should suddenly have changed its tune or at least allow itself to associate with these people," he said.
Fry represents a group of activists, including the comedian Eddie Izzard, the actor Ewan McGregor and the union Unite, who wrote to Cameron asking him to reconsider the Tories' links with Kaminski's party. They fear that mass unemployment across Europe could result in a "nationalistic and homophobic reaction" unless conventional politicians check the rise of nationalism.
"As we start to pay for the financial disaster of the last year, a kind of great pimple of nationalism, homophobia and racism is going to erupt around Europe because there is going to be trouble with unemployment," Fry told Channel 4 News. He said it was imperative to make a stand now because the lesson of the 1930s was that things will only get worse.
Elsewhere, Ben Summerskill, head of the equality group Stonewall, pulled out of a Pride event in protest at the appearance in Manchester not only of Michal Kaminski but also the Latvian Roberts Zile, who heads his country's right-wing nationalist For Fatherland and Freedom party.
This is the party accused by Foreign Secretary David Miliband of taking part in the annual celebrations in Riga of a Latvian unit of the Waffen SS. Miliband also claimed during last week's Labour party conference that Kaminski had an "anti-semitic past".
The letter from Fry wasn't the only one Cameron received on the subject. Representing Britain's Jewish community, Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, wrote to Cameron expressing her concerns at the Tories' alliance with Kaminski and Zile's parties.
The Tory response was that the Board of Deputies had been swayed by "politically motivated allegations made by the Labour party".
Interviewed on Channel 4 News, Tory MEP Charles Tannock sought to defend his party's position by arguing that they hoped to "exert influence" across Europe. He said the modern Tory party was "fully committed to equal opportunities to tolerance and anti-discrimination measures" and claimed Fry and others were exaggerating the problem.
"I've been a member of the European parliament for 10 years," he said. "I've known the Polish Law and Justice party for five years, I know central and eastern Europe extremely well, and I have never come across any utterances of the kind that Stephen makes strong allegations about." ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
I know central and eastern Europe extremely well too, given that I live here. And I sure as hell HAVE heard utterances like that, including from some of the more mainstream parties. It seems odd that the Tories' European Parliament colleagues should be able to damage their electoral prospects, but their total denial of the issue reflects very poorly on them.
Tory MEP Charles Tannock:
"I've been a member of the European parliament for 10 years," he said. "I've known the Polish Law and Justice party for five years, I know central and eastern Europe extremely well, and I have never come across any utterances of the kind that Stephen makes strong allegations about."
And there we have it. He was clearly too busy fiddling his expenses (like the rest of them) to be paying any attention to what was going on around him.