Britain’s influence in the world will become weakened if a Conservative Government is returned at the next General Election, Labour’s Leader in Europe has warned.

Speaking in the final session of Labour’s Brighton conference, Glenis Willmott, Leader of Labour’s Euro MPs, savaged the Tories’ decision to leave the main centre right grouping in Europe, which includes the parties of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Sarkozy of France, to form a new political group.

She said.  “They’ve left the centre right, and jumped into bed with some extremely strange people, from Polish homophobes to anti-Semites, and Czech climate change deniers.”

“Just when the major issues of today so clearly demand more international co-operation – Britain under a Tory government would become increasingly isolated, our international influence ever decreasing.   We would be spectating rather than influencing.”

She added that the British people under a Conservative Government could lose many of the benefits gained from membership of the European Union, including many rights for employees, a clear voice on climate change, and benefits for the consumer.

And she said that if people wanted to see what a Tory government would be like, you just had to look at how Tory MEPs voted in the European Parliament.

“All the time David Cameron pretends that the toxic Tory brand has changed.   All the time his Euro MPs are clear proof that it has not.”

Read Glenis's speech in full here

Watch Glenis speech here

1 October 2009