A controversial right-wing Polish MEP became the main voice of the Conservative Party in Europe yesterday, a further embarrassment for David Cameron’s new group of eurosceptics.

The key role of leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists went to Michal Kaminski, a former spin-doctor for President Kaczynski, even though the Tories are by far the largest party in the eight-nation group.

Timothy Kirkhope, leader of the 25 Conservative MEPs, was forced to step aside for Mr Kaminski to diffuse a row with the 15 Poles after a furious phone call from Mr Kaczynski to Mr Cameron, The Times understands.

The Poles were angry that Edward McMillan-Scott, the longest-serving Tory MEP, defeated Mr Kaminski for vice-president of the Parliament — breaking an agreement that the Pole would be the group’s only candidate.

Mr McMillan-Scott was expelled from the Conservatives on Tuesday night but in order to save the new group Mr Kaminiski was handed its leadership. It means that he will sit in the front row of the European Parliament instead of Mr Kirkhope and give the group’s main response in all the big debates.

The choice of Mr Kaminski, 37, for leader raised eyebrows because of his firebrand past. In 1999 he attracted headlines in Poland when, as an MP, he travelled to London to pay homage to General Augusto Pinochet.

As a young man he not only associated with the far-right National Revival of Poland but also a hardline Catholic organisation, the Christian-National Union. He is understood to remain an anti-abortionist and opposed to gay rights.

While he was spin-doctor for Mr Kaczynski, the President ran a campaign against the Lisbon Treaty which warned that it would force deeply conservative Poland to accept gay marriages under the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.

To add to the Tory party’s discomfort Mr Kaminski was branded “completely inappropriate and unsuitable” by Mr McMillan-Scott in an interview with the BBC’s The Record: Europe to be broadcast this week.

Mr McMillan-Scott said he was uncomfortable that Mr Kaminski had been in the National Revival of Poland for three years. “It is homophobic, racist, anti-semitic — they use the Nazi salute, they are linked to the BNP through a thing called the European National Front — it is a deeply unpleasant organisation,” Mr McMillan-Scott said.

Mr Kaminski rebutted the claims about his old affiliations, saying that National Revival had lurched to the extreme right long after he had left it.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, made his maiden speech in the European Parliament yesterday and used it to warn against a military strike on Iran that used human rights as an excuse. He also attacked the campaign group Unite Against Facism as “an organisation of far-left criminals which routinely deploys violence and intimidation against nationalist dissidents in Britain”.

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