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As Gordon Brown's Labour party crumbles, David Cameron’s Conservatives, with 24 MEPs, have emerged from the European elections as Britain’s largest party. An FT editorial argues, however, that the Tory leader’s determination to leave the largest centre-right alliance in the European parliament, the EPP, “is foolish and counter-productive”.
Cameron stands not only to alienate natural allies like Germany’s Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the FT argues. In seeking to form a new eurosceptic group with eccentric “socially very conservative” parties, “none of whom are in power”, Britain will forgo “leading roles in parliament.” A “rigid commitment to impotence”, complains a former UK permanent representative in Brussels.
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