openDemocracyUK

Anti-fascist MEP threatens legal action over expulsion by Tories

Edward McMillan-Scott MEP may take legal action against the Conservative Party after an internal appeal panel upheld his expulsion from the party.
Sunder Katwala
15 January 2010

Edward McMillan-Scott MEP may take legal action against the Conservative Party after an internal appeal panel upheld his expulsion from the party. 

The MEP had been a party member for 43 years and represented the Conservatives in the European Parliament for 25 years from 1984-2009. But he was stripped of the Tory whip last year, sitting as an Independent, and later expelled from the party after his fellow MEPs voted him Vice-President of the European Parliament, when McMillan-Scott stood against Michal Kaminski, the Polish Law and Justice politician.
McMillan-Scott challenged Kaminski for the Parliament's Vice-Presidency after he had warned David Cameron about Kaminski's extremist past. However, Kaminski's defeat in the EP vote led to Tory Timothy Kirkhope standing aside so that Kaminski could instead become thecontroversial leader of the Tories' new European parliamentary grouping. 

McMillan-Scott said he felt "no shame" in losing the whip on a point of principle, but believes that his expulsion from the party for the same thing "disproportionate and against natural justice." 

He noted that his treatment went beyond that of any Conservative MP involved in the Westminster expenses scandal, and that the five year ban contrasts with the two year expulsion of Den Dover, the former Tory MEP who was expelled for two years in 2008 when he refused to pay back "unduly" claimed expenses payments worth over £538,000.

Read on at Next Left.

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