I have seen this question come up a few times now, so it obviously deserves some attention. I tried to look up Conservative policy for the coming European Elections, but all I could find was a single page on the issue. However, it does summarise their position nicely:

We believe in an open, flexible Europe in which countries work to achieve shared goals rather than the ever greater centralisation of power in Brussels.

We believe that in democracies nothing lasting can be built without the people's consent - and yet people have been denied their say on the renamed EU Constitution.

I can't disagree with any of that, and it could easily have come from the Libertas website. But this is where the similarity ends.

If the Lisbon Treaty is not yet in force at the time of the next general election, and a Conservative Government is elected, we would put the Treaty to a referendum of the British people, recommending a 'no' vote. If the British people rejected the Treaty, we would withdraw Britain's ratification of it.

Well... then what? If Britain stops the Lisbon Treaty, just as the Irish have, then what happens next for Europe? Are the Tories really suggesting that the EU should remain how it is? Even the EU claims that it is broken, which is why they pushed the Constitution/Lisbon Treaty to 'make it work'.

And NONE of that is relevant to the EU elections - it is all dependent upon a Tory Government being elected at some time in the future (probably 2010 ) and that the Lisbon Treaty hasn't been ratified by then. So what will their MEPs be doing for the next five years?

The EU must adapt to the times we live in - and it should act where European countries together can achieve things they cannot do alone. So our priorities for the EU are today's challenges of global competitiveness, global warming and global poverty.

That means:

Ending the remaining barriers to free trade within the EU

Taking back control of social and employment policy so we can make our own decisions in these vital areas for Britain's prosperity and social well-being

Improving the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme

Reforming the EU's aid policy so that it is more focused on poverty reduction and less entangled by bureaucracy and administrative short-comings.

It would be hard to argue with any of that, but there is no mention of reform at all. Not even a nibblet of change. The Tories are happy to keep the EU as it is.

One only has to look at the voting record of Conservative MEPs to see that they consistently support the EU's anti-democratic policies and structures. Most people don't seem to realise that the Conservative MEPs are members of the EPP-ED, home to both Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the European Parliament, and José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission. That's right, the Tories are part of the largest group in the European Parliament.

So what difference would it make if all 72 of Britain's MEPs were Conservatives for the next five years? None, because the Tories have no plans for reforming the EU, and no means of actually implementing them anyway.

This is NOT what the British public want.

This is why Libertas and the Conservatives are offering completely different positions to the electorate. Libertas is not just saying 'No' to the Lisbon Treaty, we are offering a pan-European solution to make the EU more democratic, more accountable and more transparent. We want to return national sovereignty. We want to ensure that everyone making major decisions and forming European law should be directly elected and accountable to the public.

So if you are happy with the EU as it is, then vote for the the Tories in June.

However if, like most people in Britain, you think that the EU is over centralised, authoritarian, corrupt and anti-democratic, and you want to change it, then please support Libertas.

The EU was promoted after WW11 as the institution to prevent Germany going to war again. As Germany hasn’t gone to war since then it is frequently claimed that the EU has kept peace in Europe for 60 years. The risk of war, however, came from the Soviet Union not Germany. It was NATO that ensured peace as the EU had no competent military capability whatsoever with which to protect Europe.

The EU was fraudulently sold to the UK public in a 1973 referendum as ‘just a Free Trade Agreement’. Edward Heath (the then Tory Prime Minister) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were fully, and secretly, aware that it was nothing of the sort. more It was to be a full political union to make a European Super-State to rival the USA and the Soviet Union. It now seems to have been hijacked by the extreme Socialist Parties of the EU. However for this to happen all of the UK sovereignty and political power of any significance would have be passed over to the EU in Brussels. The way the structure of the EU was set up meant that this power would be passed to faceless, unelected bureaucrats in the European Commission (a sort of EU ‘civil service’ or more closely the old Soviet Politburo). They are essentially self-selecting and not accountable to anyone but themselves.

Our political power and sovereignty continues to be quietly transferred in small increments (perhaps over 70% so far) in the hope that it will not be noticed until too late.

There is an elected, but more or less toothless, European Parliament that will have the sovereignty. However the political power will go to the European Commission. The EU parliament has virtually no power to do anything much but rubber stamp, unaltered, all Directives that are issued by the unelected European Commission.

The Maastricht Treaty is the formal treaty to confirm and implement this transfer of power and sovereignty. It has, within its pages, a so called ‘ratchet rule’ whereby any political power transferred from any member country to the EU cannot be returned under any circumstances.

It is effectively an instrument to purge the UK (and Europe) of National Parliamentary Democracy and replace it with a self-selecting European Oligarchy and a token elected EU Parliament.

It is the opinion of many in the European Commission that the ‘democratic experiment’ in Europe has failed and we must now move into a ‘post democratic society’.

We have had a series of exchanges with the Conservative Party HQ to find out what Mr Cameron would do about the Maastricht Treaty if he came to power in the UK.

His office stated that he will not withdraw from the Treaty but he will re-negotiate for the return of many of our political powers e.g. ‘regain control of our fisheries.’

A core condition of the Maastricht Treaty is that such powers, once transferred to the EU, cannot be returned. It is just not possible to re-negotiate for the return of control of our fisheries from within the Maastricht Treaty. Indeed the French and Spanish would split their sides laughing at the very notion.

There is no middle way. We either withdraw from the Treaty or see total control of the UK passed to the EU and effectively the UK nation states of England, Scotland Wales and Ireland (and also the European states) will then cease to exist.

We are intrigued as to know how Mr Cameron and the Tory Party think that they will be able to re-negotiate to reclaim control of our fisheries from within the Maastricht Treaty.

There is space waiting for them in The Europrobe for the Tory Party to explain how they intend to do it. (Dec 2005)

A situation of great interest, and developing nicely, is that of the position of the Tory MEPs in the EU Parliament.

Mr Cameron has instructed them to detach themselves from the EPP group in the EU parliament. (The EPP group is made up of Europhile ‘right of centre’ MEPs from several countries who, although they want Free Trade, they are Federalists and wish to see the full implementation of the Maastricht Treaty). However most of these Tory MEPs are committed Europhiles because they were selected (not elected) on that basis by a previous Europhile Tory committee.

18 of the 27 have bluntly refused to comply with Mr Cameron’s order. Most of the others seem to be waiting to see which way the wind blows.

He cannot allow them too blatantly, or even covertly, defy him without completely losing all his credibility and authority as leader.

However, he has no authority whatsoever to replace them with MEPs who are more in tune with this apparently new Tory Party policy on the EU.

There is simply no possible compromise position – the Europhile MEPs must either follow Mr Cameron’s lead and lean towards Euro scepticism (which, as committed Europhiles, goes against their dogma) or resign as MEPs. (They won’t of course – the perks are far too generous to lose and would also lose their influence to help establish the new European Soviet).

"Aren't you offering the same as the Tories?"