Cameron's Anti-Semitic European leader

The total disinterest in European politics in this country means that there has been virtually no scrutiny of the new odds and sods group to which the Tories now belong in the European parliament. But the Observer today reveals more about the mindset of the Michal Kaminski, the man chosen by David Cameron to be its leader.

Over recent years a series of investigations have shown that Polish residents of Jedwabne, along with some German troops, rounded up the Jewish population in July 1941 and herded them into a barn which was set on fire. At a ceremony in Jedwabne on 10 July 2001, the then president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, called for the country to confront its past and apologised. But many in Jedwabne opposed the ceremony and apology, claiming that the Germans were mainly to blame and that Poland should not say sorry because Polish Jews had "collaborated" with the Soviet occupiers. An article in the far-right Polish newspaper Nasza Polska on 20 March 2001 quoted Kaminski as saying: "Maybe they try to suppress their own guilty conscience, those Jews who did a lot of harm to Poland during the Soviet occupation and during communism."

Kaminski denies making the comments though respected Polish newspapers report that he was part of this campaign. Either way, Rabbi Marcus is surely right to demand that Cameron dissociates himself from these views.