The cry of “double standards” is a familiar refrain, but it’s one worth repeating again as the EU’s kleptocratic ‘parliament’ takes time off from raiding the cookie jar to grumble about, well, lets allow Daniel Hannan to tell the miserable tale:

Socialist and Liberal MEPs went ballistic in Strasbourg this afternoon over the demand that a Polish Euro-MP, Bronislaw Geremek, lose his seat after refusing to say whether he had worked for the Communists. I’ve never seen anything like it. The hemicycle is usually one of the dullest places on Earth. But such was today’s tempest that the session nearly had to be suspended. One after another, Socialist, Liberal and — hilariously — Communist Euro-MPs rose to protest about the Polish government’s “witch-hunt”. Although they habitually vote to waive the immunity of Rightist MEPs, they insisted, to thunderous applause, that Warsaw had no business challenging Mr Geremek’s democratic mandate…What is outrageous, however, is the Left’s hypocrisy. Think of how Socialist Euro-MPs reacted when Austria voted for Jörg Haider, or when Italy appointed a foreign minister from the Alleanza Nazionale. The slightest connection with Right-wing authoritarianism, however historical and however putative, was enough to anathematise a party. Yet, when the elected conservative Polish government fulfils its manifesto commitment and asks former Communist spies to own up, they are somehow trampling over basic freedoms.

Read the whole thing.