Miliband slams Tories 'shocking' neo-Nazis links

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband yesterday accused the Conservative party of putting Britain's relations with the world's leading powers at serious risk by allying the Conservative party to far-right European politicians with neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic links.

Writing in yesterday's Observer, Miliband expressed astonishment that William Hague, his Conservative opposite number, could describe as a "good friend" a Polish politician who reiterated last week his opposition to an unconditional apology by his countrymen for the massacre in 1941 of at least 300 Jews.

In a blistering attack that takes the row over the Tories' rightwing partners in Europe to new levels, Miliband warned there would be serious repercussions for Britain's reputation abroad if the Conservatives were to win power while allied to such far-right parties.

"There will be incredulity in Washington, Beijing and Delhi, never mind Berlin and Paris, that a party aspiring to government in Britain - the party of Winston Churchill, no less - chooses allies like this," he says.

Miliband was to meet Hilary Clinton overnight on her first solo visit to London since becoming United States Secretary of State. The Foreign Secretary, who is from a Jewish family, demanded that Cameron suspend his party's membership of the new European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) in which the 25 Tory members of the European Parliament (MEPs) sit in the European Parliament, alongside controversial Polish, Latvian and Lithuanian partners.

Miliband's criticisms came after comments by the ECR group's chairman, the Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, to the Jewish Chronicle suggesting the murder of hundreds of Jews in Jedwabne by Poles should be considered a lesser crime than atrocities by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

"I think that it's unfair comparing it [the Jedwabne massacre] with Nazi crimes and putting it with the same level as the Nazi policy," Kaminski said, adding that he opposed a national apology for the Jedwabne massacre unless Jews apologised for what he said were their crimes during the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland.

Last week's Tory Party annual conference was overshadowed by arguments over Kaminski's attendance, and that of another member of the ECR group, Latvian Roberts Zile of the For Fatherland and Freedom Party - some of whose members support commemorations of the Latvian Waffen SS.

Miliband said he was shocked and "astounded" by Kaminski's comments and by a letter sent by Hague to expelled Tory MEP Edward McMillan-Scott, in which he described Kaminski as "a good friend of the Conservative Party".

Miliband, whose mother is a Polish Jew from a family that lost 80 members in the Holocaust, said: "There isn't room for hair-splitting when it comes to the Jedwabne massacre. Nor when it comes to understanding what is at stake in framing our international alliances."

The Conservatives yesterday batted away criticism of Kaminski, insisting suggestions he is anti-Semitic and homophobic are smears promoted by Labour supporters.

Support for Cameron's party has plummeted among the gay community. A new survey by PinkNews.co.uk found that only 22 per cent of respondents would vote Tory if there were a general election tomorrow compared to 39 per cent in June.

Senior members of Kaminski's Law and Justice party have made openly homophobic comments including comparing homosexuality to bestiality.

Conservative leader David Cameron told Sky News last week: "I don't believe the Law and Justice Party are homophobic. Poland is a Catholic country. Most of the parties in Poland do take a stance like that on issues like gay marriage. I don't happen to agree with them, but they're not a homophobic party."

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "Michal Kaminski is not an anti-Semite, as his record of combating anti-Semitism in Poland, his welcome to Downing St by Tony Blair and his welcome by the Israeli Government on his several official visits to Israel all show."

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