"I have left the nasty party and joined the nice party" states Euro MP

AFTER 42 YEARS as a Conservative and 25 years as a Member of the European Parliament representing Yorkshire and Humberside, Edward McMillan-Scott MEP has  joined the Liberal Democrats. He claimed the move was because he could not get a fair hearing from Tory leaders in a dispute over Europe.

The Yorkshire and Humberside MEP was expelled from the Tory Party in September 2009, after challenging David Cameron's decision to take his Euro MPs out of the pro-EU European People's Party, and put them in a new eurosceptic group, alongside the Polish "Law and Justice Party".

Mr McMillan-Scott had made claims about alleged homophobic and anti-Semitic tendencies of Michal Kaminski, now leader of the resulting "Conservatives and Reformists" group, which apparantly embarrassed Conservative leaders and prompted his expulsion.

Despite planning to take the matter to the High Court the MEP has decided that he would not get a fair hearing and has withdrawn from the Conservative Party and begun discussions with Nick Clegg the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

He had this to say on the move:

I have left the nasty party and joined the nice party. I will continue to sit in the European Parliament as an independent MEP, and not for the moment as a Liberal Democrat. I am keeping my options open on that, with the agreement of Nick Clegg."