I'm very open about my views about the European Union.  I was an active member of the Council of Business for Sterling in Wales and later played a key role in attracting the 'I Want a Referendum' campaign to the Aberconwy Constituency.

I'm opposed to the idea of the UK joining the Single Currency and feel a sense of betrayal at the way in which the Liberal Democrats colluded with the Labour Government to stop the people of this country having a vote on the Lisbon Treaty.  I was even in Ireland during the referendum held by the Irish State which resulted in a substantial no vote.  As with any vote opposing further powers to the European Union the Irish have been told to think again and come back with the response demanded by the anti-democratic European elite.

However, I have always been confident that my view of an Europe of co-operating states can be achieved best through working within the Conservative Party.  I understand the views of those who voted for UKIP and I met plenty of local residents who intended to vote for that party at the Euro elections in May but I feel that they are wrong.  A single issue party will not, ultimately, change the way in which Europe works.  The Conservative Party can.

A key promise made by David Cameron when he stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party was to leave the European Peoples Party group in the European Parliament.  Not before time.  The EPP is a right of center grouping in the Christian Democrat tradition.  I would agree with them on many economic issues and some social issues but they are a Federalist Grouping.  On the most important issue facing Europe the views of the Conservative mainstream are completely at odds with the views of the European Peoples Party.  If the Conservative Party were to be serious about communicating a new agenda for an Europe of co-operating nation states than we simple had to leave the EPP.  And that is what David Cameron has delivered. 

People often question the willingness of David Cameron to take difficult decisions that go against the grain of the London media elite or the BBC.  People asked whether he was willing to shake the Conservative europhiles from their complacent acceptance of the European agenda once elected to Brussels.  In his decision to leave the EPP and form a new, Eurosceptic alliance (The European Conservatives and Reformists) David Cameron has shown leadership, integrity and political courage.

The new grouping has been met with outrage by the few remaining Europhiles masquerading as Conservatives in the European Parliament and with smear any inaccurate attacks on our partners by the media elite of the UK.  Articles have appeared in many national newspapers accusing the Conservative and Reformists Group of everything from being stridently homophobic to being crudely and violently prejudiced against the Jewish people.  These accusations have been made by the usual rent a quote Labour MP Dennis McShane and many other hardened europhiles.  Unfortunately one of the most vocal has been Edward McMillan Scott MEP who has been thrown out of the Conservative Group following his personal and vicious attempts to smear the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists, Michael Kaminski MEP. 

In a full rebuttal of the claims made by the awful McShane and McMillan-Scott, the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists has written eloquently for the ConservativeHome website.  I would ask readers to consider his arguments before accepting the media narrative peddled in the UK by the BBC, The Guardian and others.

As for the people in Aberconwy who voted UKIP and questioned David Cameron and his willingness to make the correct decision regardless of the media response - this episode should give you confidence.  

GUTO BEBB      

New development

William Hague has written to Edward McMillan-Scott providing him with conditions for acceptance back to the Conservative and Reformists Group.  They are reightly harsh and I suspect that a man who stood on a platform of leaving the EPP only in May will not have the character to accept that he was wrong, ill-informed and frankly devious in his comments about Michael Kaminski.