Fox: time to leave the EPP

It believes in powerful trade unions, redistributive taxation and a high minimum wage

Dr Liam Fox MP

The EPP also believes in "the realisation of the United States of Europe", the ending of Britain's budget rebate and a worrying array of corporatist social policies. Bearing this in mind, you might wonder what exactly the Conservative Party associates itself with it for. I know I do.

Today Dr Liam Fox has pledged that under his leadership, the Conservative Party would leave the highly integrationalist EPP grouping in the European Parliament, and try and form a new centre right coalition with parties from Eastern Europe.

This is something Iain Duncan-Smith tried to do while party leader and is something none of the other leadership candidates would even consider. David Davis has said that membership of the EPP is a decision to be left with the MEPs (another example of Davis's non-leadership on matters of controversy), while Clarke, as a vice president of the European Movement, could hardly be expected to make a stand like this on such a matter.

The Telegraph, in its leader column, thinks Fox has had another great idea, and one that "could restore Tory health":

It is quite right that the Tories withdraw from the EPP. But is it important? The seating plan in the European Parliament does not set many pulses racing. Yet there are two good reasons why Dr Fox's initiative deserves applause.

The first reason is that Conservative membership of the EPP is one of the basis of the accustion that Conservatives say one thing in Britain and do the opposite in Brussels. It was this perception of duplicity that contributed to the record high vote for the UKIP in some seats, and the poor Conservative turnout in the same seats in the 2005 election. Thus, concludes the paper, if the party adopted the policy set out by Dr Fox it would be taking a major step towards restoring its integrity - and recovering its electability. I agree. It would be a small but significant step, albeit one that would probably go over the heads of most of the electorate, but would send a clear message to people who are clued up and care about the issue.

The second, and far more impressive reason, is that it would allow a new voting bloc to be created, drawing support from the conservative movements in the accession states. Such a co-alition could be a powerful agent for institutional reform in the halls of Brussels and Strasbourg.

Like so many of Dr Fox's ideas, this has the possibility to be a winner both at home and abroad.

On the day that Davids Davis and Cameron launched their campaigns with a chorus of vacuity ("Change to Win" "Modern Conservatism"), it's heartening to see that at least one candidate made a statement of real substance.