In Brussels, MEPs do not sit in national parties. They form into transnational groups and, delivering the Conservative party's manifesto commitment, I was proud to launch the new European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) in June.
Our group has enormous talent and we have already secured a number of positions of influence in the parliament. For example, in our economics team we have Kay Swinburne, Vicky Ford and Lajos Bokros, who was credited with building the Hungarian free economy in the 1990s. Our environment team contains talent such as Martin Callanan and Edvard Kožušník whose commitment to the environment is so strong he cycled from Prague to Strasbourg last month!
We have secured the chairmanship of the powerful internal market and consumer protection committee for Malcolm Harbour. This will enable us to open up the EU's single market and create an array of new jobs and opportunities for British businesses.
On issues that matter to the British people – the economy, jobs, the environment and development in poorer countries – our MEPs will be able to deliver. And most importantly of all, we will be the first credible group achieving these objectives without edging us towards a European superstate.
The first battle when MEPs return will be the election of a new European commission president. Such an election is crucial because, like it or not, that individual will shape the EU for the next five years.
Currently, there is one declared candidate – José Manuel Barroso – who would be my personal choice to serve again. Not only because the leftwing alternatives mooted so far would be disastrous for our economy, but because I believe President Barroso has made achievements in his first term.
Barroso has two options for gaining enough support in parliament to guarantee another term. He could offer the Socialists' group (including British Labour MEPs) concessions that would cripple our economy. Or he can do business with free market, open trade and reform-minded MEPs in the ECR.
President Barroso realises the importance of our group in this crucial battle, and that is why he is due to attend our first group meeting back after the summer.
Unfortunately, over the last few weeks, we have seen a concerted effort to destabilise the new group. We anticipated such skulduggery from our political opponents who are concerned that there is no longer a euro-federalist consensus among the mainstream groups. However, I never expected that attack to come from one of our own former MEPs. To say I am disappointed is an understatement.
In his article on Cif last week, Edward McMillan-Scott made a number of accusations against the Polish leader of our new group, Michał Kamiński MEP.
Let me just correct a few of them.
First, I had not been elected leader of the ECR when we met in Strasbourg and was not "replaced" by Kamiński. The election was yet to take place and I decided to rescind my candidacy. There were no orders from up the chain of command as has been reported elsewhere. I simply felt that our Polish colleagues had been dealt a great disservice by McMillan-Scott's choice to stand against Kamiński for the parliament's vice-presidency despite a decision by our whole group to nominate Kamiński. My decision was necessary and appropriate in the circumstances and Kamiński was elected leader with unanimous support.
I look forward to serving as the deputy chairman of the group under Michal Kamiński's leadership. He is a decent man who has had an eminent career already, despite being just 37. He has fought for the cause of freedom and justice for the Polish people all his life and I am confident he will use his strength and determination to fight for change in the EU.
Unfortunately, to date, many newspapers have simply accepted the smears against him, rather than actually look at the man. He has refuted all the allegations made.
Kamiński has made it clear that he was a member of the National Revival as a teenager but left well before it took on a far-right platform. He has fought for human rights and for liberal and democratic values in Poland. He supports civil partnerships for homosexuals (although not marriage). He fought in the underground against Poland's authoritarian Communist regime and, as a teenager, risked his personal freedom for the freedom of his nation.
He learned English by listening to illegal broadcasts of the BBC and has admired Britain as a nation that helped liberate eastern Europe from tyranny. It is ironic that the freedom of the press for which he yearned as a teenager has been so widely ill-treated to smear his name.
And then we come to the allegation that Kamiński is antisemitic. Speaking as European chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel, I know that Kamiński is, like me, a life-long friend of the Jewish community.
Before returning to the European parliament last month, Kamiński was spokesman for President Kaczyński of Poland who has been described in the pages of Israeli paper Ha'aretz as having "long been a friend to the Jewish community".
Kamiński's website has pictures of him decorating the (Jewish) chief of staff to President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, with the Polish Cross of Merit in 2008 when Emanuel was a congressman and he was a Polish minister.
On the specific point of the Jedwabne pogrom, Kamiński has made it clear that the acts were horrific and murderous but that the whole Polish nation should not be held responsible for the terrible and murderous acts of a few. The former Polish prime minister, Jerzy Buzek, now president of the European parliament, has himself said: "The crime committed in Jedwabne 60 years ago cannot be blamed on all Poles alive today."
These smears have got to stop. Michal Kamiński has been far more patient than I would have been, but he will not tolerate his name being sullied indefinitely.
Under the leadership of Michal Kamiński we will work non-stop to deliver the change in the EU that so many people desire. By continuing this distressing campaign against our new group, the only people McMillan-Scott is serving are the Socialists who the voters have so clearly rejected.
Timothy Kirkhope, leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament.