Edward McMillan-Scott: After my unjust expulsion, I'm quitting the Conservatives for a party of fairness and change

YORKSHIRE and North Lincolnshire have not lost an MEP, but they have lost a Conservative. I have joined the Liberal Democrats at their Birmingham conference this weekend.

I was expelled, subject to appeal, from the Conservative Party last year after a dispute over David Cameron's controversial new EU

partners. My appeal has been a long one-sided process which I at least have undertaken in good faith.

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I have also tried to reach an amicable political solution at all levels within the party, to face a stone wall.

It culminated in a letter last weekend from the party which my lawyers, Russell Jones and Walker – the best in their field – say makes clear that David Cameron has no intention of giving me a fair hearing, scheduled for next Thursday. My lawyers say my expulsion was unconstitutional, disproportionate and against natural justice.

So I have withdrawn from that process and resigned from the party.

Of course, I shall continue to serve my constituents in the region without regard to their political allegiance and continue to sit in the European Parliament as an independent Vice-President.

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Through that position, I give a voice to the voiceless worldwide and to my constituents. I believe that those I have helped, whether

individuals or organisations, will agree that when I am on your side, I fight hard. My campaigns on issues like support for hill farmers or for local speciality producers, for businesses or the universities have been widely supported.

I have helped to secure EU finance for conservation projects, from Whitby's Headland Project to York's Barley Hall to the chapel at Giggleswick School.

In the European Parliament, often starting with constituency postbag cases, I have fought the Costa villa and timeshare sharks, led the campaign to bring down the EU Commission in 1999 for mismanagement and worked with Kate and Gerry McCann to get a Europe-wide emergency child alert.

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I have campaigned on climate change, bringing Sir Paul McCartney to Brussels before the Copenhagen summit to spread his message and mine, widely supported by science, that "Less Meat = Less Heat". I often turn to Lib Dem MEP Diana Wallis for specialist legal advice.

My work in human rights and democracy worldwide has led to my appointment as Vice-President for those fields. Over the years, I have campaigned for democracy and human rights in Europe, from the fall of the Berlin Wall in Europe in 1989 and with dissidents in the Soviet bloc before then. After the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, I have campaigned for reform in China and worldwide, from the Arab world to the remaining tyrannies like Burma or Cuba.

At all times I have not worked with Conservatives but with Liberals like Graham Watson MEP, Shirley Williams, academics like Helen and William Wallace and internationally with key figures such as liberal Dr Ayman Nour, who courageously challenged Hosni Mubarak for the presidency of Egypt and was imprisoned for it. His release was organised by me and liberal MEPs.

I look forward to working with MPs like Ed Davey and Ming Campbell and other committed LibDems in their foreign affairs team.

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To those in the Conservative Party with whom I have worked over the years, I offer my thanks and regret for any hurt.

I have been forced by David Cameron to make another choice. Instead of going left to Labour, as did other pro-European MPs like Robert Jackson or Quentin Davies, I have moved to the centre ground which in my belief most properly represents the interests of my electorate, the Liberal Democrats.

The Lib Dems have an EU and world perspective I share, and this new political base enables me to continue my focus on democracy and human rights, the cornerstone of the EU's foreign policy.

From being a liberal Conservative, I become a conservative Liberal. Most of my family are liberals: I am pleased to join the Liberal family.

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I first knew Nick Clegg as a key negotiator on trade for the EU

with Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, the former Richmond MP, and then as an MEP. He and Chris Huhne, another former MEP, are among those like Vince Cable who have modernised the LibDems to face the challenges before us, at home and abroad.

It was bad for Britain, its businesses and especially the City when David Cameron split from the mainstream majority EPP group in Europe and isolated himself from meetings of centre-right leaders before key decisions are taken under the Lisbon Treaty, now in force. The EPP's slender membership in the UK is mostly Lib Dems.

I have been around the higher circles of the Conservative Party for long enough to fear that on Europe Cameron says one thing in opposition and will do another in government. I leave the struggle against the anti-Europeans in the party to its remaining pro-Europeans. They should speak up now.

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It was wrong of Cameron to associate with MEPs who have extremist pasts in his new European alliance. Next Tuesday, his associates in Latvia will no doubt join, as usual, in commemoration of the role of the Waffen SS during the war. His partners in Poland will continue to voice their opinions on the vile anti-Semitic Radio Maryja and preach homophobia. Cameron says he is against extremism at home, yet he encourages it in Europe. I fear that many Conservatives want to leave Europe, not lead in Europe. Instead of challenging that from within I look forward to doing so from another political base.

My expulsion from the Conservative Party for standing on a point of principle was vengeful and self-harming to David Cameron. I have long fought against totalitarianism and the extremism and religious persecution it brings: I have personal reasons and political reasons for doing so. The rise of the Right in 13 out of 27 EU countries in last year's Euro-elections must be challenged, not accommodated.

My reasons for joining the Liberal Democrats are that in Nick Clegg they have a leader whom I like, admire and respect. They are internationalists, not nationalists. They are committed to politics based on the values of fairness and change.

Edward McMillan-Scott is a Yorkshire & The Humber MEP and Vice-President of the European Parliament with responsibility for human rights and democracy