Lib Dem Browne: Tories’ ‘nutty’ euro-allies
By politics.co.uk staff
The focus of the Telegraph’s undercover recordings of Lib Dem MPs has switched to Europe, with Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne the latest victim.
In the tapes, recorded by undercover reporters posing as Mr Browne’s constituents in Taunton Deane, he dismisses the Conservatives’ allies in the European parliament as “nutty”.
David Cameron controversially broke off his Conservative MEPs from the main centre-right grouping in the European parliament, in which the parties of German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy sit.
Mr Browne echoed previous Lib Dem criticisms of the new European Conservatives and Reformists grouping (ECR), which includes small parties from Latvia and Poland accused of homophobia and anti-Semitism – albeit in more moderate language.
He said of the parties in the ECR: “They are quite nutty and that’s an embarrassment to them [Conservatives].”
The news comes as little surprise given prominent clashes between Conservatives and Lib Dems, including in the televised leaders’ debates, on the issue prior to the formation of the coalition.
The reporters also recorded Mr Browne criticising the Conservatives’ immigration policy, which was carried through into the coalition agreement and remains a bone of contention between the two parties.
He added: “The Tories had a very harsh, in my view, immigration policy. That’s not to say I think that there shouldn’t be, you know, a level of immigration which can’t be assimilated in society – I’m not in favour of letting rip and letting everyone in – I think we need to have a proper, functioning policy.”
But he claimed the Conservative policy was driven by largely “uncharitable instincts”.
The Foreign Office minister also insisted that his party’s influence would water down the controversial immigration cap.
He continued: “I think with the involvement of the Lib Dems plus the more liberal-minded Tories we’ll end up with a policy which is more enlightened.”
Mr Browne is the ninth Lib Dem minister to be recorded by undercover Telegraph journalists at their constituency surgeries – prompting the most high-profile victim, Vince Cable, to attack the paper for ‘undermining’ the work of MPs and damaging the relationship between them and their constituents.
