Much fluttering in the dovecotes attends the report by Bruno Waterfield on the plan by the EU parliament to “eliminate Eurosceptics as an organised opposition” – but the real target is the Conservative group.

The “plan” is the impending change to the qualifying criteria to set up political groups within the parliament, raising the current threshold from 20 MEPs from a fifth of the EU’s member states to 30 MEPs and one quarter.

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Would anyone care if the Tory MEPs had to sit with the odds and sods? Would it make any difference to anything, at any time, anywhere, ever? Dave the Chameleon promised to quit the EPP, it was one of the things that got him elected, and it is something he could do without a problem, apart from the whingeing of his own over paid, over fed, utterly useless MEPs. Time to show a bit of leadership Dave.

It is perhaps not all too surprising that the European Parliament are prepared to do this or that a number of Conservative MEPs would help construct and vote through these changes. The majority of Conservative MEPs are, I believe, both selfish and money grabbing (the same could be said of MEPs from other parties too). A number of Conservative MEPs are also failed MPs who have been sent off to Brussels to be placated until retirement with generous EU handouts, perks and privileges.

Recently, when OpenEurope decided to question British MEPs on their expenses, Malcolm Harbour MEP commented:

While Christopher Beazley MEP said:

These were the Conservative MEPs who refused to answer OpenEurope's questions: Sir Robert Atkins, Christopher Beazely, John Bowis, Philip Bushill-Matthews, Martin Callanan, Den Dover, James Elles, Malcolm Harbour, Caroline Jackson, Timothy Kirkhope, John Purvis, Struan Stevenson, Robert Sturdy. I wonder whether we will see these same names cropping up again when it comes to voting through the EU Parliamentary grouping proposals?

From personal experience I have encountered identical attitudes to those found by OpenEurope. When I started up a Conservative campaign called 'MEPWatch' with a couple of colleagues in order to make the MEP Selection process more transparent, along with highlighting the views and general work of Conservative MEPs we were immediately and viciously attacked by a number of Conservative MEPs who only had their own positions and interests at heart. Jonathan Evans MEP and the supposedly RT. Hon. Sir Robert Atkins MEP (though I have found nothing honourable about him) sent us a number of incredibly abusive emails which were of course all tagged with the Private and Confidential mark so that they could not be republished. Den Dover MEP even attempted to take legal action against me - one of his own party members - to shut our campaign up. I should add that he probably succeeded in that aim.

Regarding Our Man Dave, I suspect this will provide him with a convenient excuse to get out of doing something he never really wanted to do in the first place.

For Dave, getting out of the EPP is the one very specific commitment he made during his election campaign. It is, therefore, the "litmus test" of his Eurosceptic credentials and thus assumes an importance which transcends the actual issue. If he is unable to quit the EPP, that will have all sorts of ramifications, not least with the "Eurosceptic" wing of the party.

You are of course right, Richard. The commitment was specific, but then again so was the supposed immediacy with which it was meant to happen - now being pushed back to the European Elections in 2009. I can think of many ramifications stemming from Dave not leaving the EPP, but at that point we may be a year away or less from the General Election, and if the party looks as though it might gain a majority, then the usual 'don't rock the boat' arguments would be wheeled out and the issue may just be swept under the carpet as if it never happened. Also, curiously, such is the extent of control that the EU now has over British life and politics that our own political parties cannot produce what could be called internal party policy (who they group and sit with in parliament) without being regulated on what they can and cannot do. Yet this and many other matters are constantly ignored by media and politicians in equal measure who are all prepared to stick their heads in the sand in blissful ignorance. How much longer can this continue? Indefinitely?