Parliament’s first Polish-born MP has told of the discrimination he faced from within his own party when he put himself forward to be a candidate.

Daniel Kawczynski, the MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham since 2005, revealed he was told he should change his name if he wanted to be elected.

Opening a Westminster Hall debate on Anglo-Polish relations this morning, the MP declared himself “very proud” of his “unpronounceable surname.” But he said:

“When I was first standing to be on the Conservative candidates list somebody said to me: ‘Well, you know, you’re never going to be elected with a completely unpronounceable surname like that. You’ve got to change it or you’ve got to Anglicise it. There’s many others that have done so.’ “And I said: ‘Well in that case I will never stand for Parliament because I’m very proud of my Polish roots.’ “When somebody questioned me when I was first being selected and said: ‘Well, Kawasaki [the name of a Japanese motorbike manufacturing] , that’s not a very Shropshire name is it. How are you going to get by with a name like Kawasaki?’ “I said: ‘It didn’t cause my grandfather’s generation any problems when they were fighting in the Battle of Britain so I hope it won’t cause me any problems today.'”

Talking of Anglo-Polish relations and the Tory party…

Tory MEPs are part of the only group in the European Parliament that didn’t sign a letter issued yesterday condemning the Polish government’s assault on the “independence and impartiality of the Polish judiciary.”

Situation in #Poland: read our joint letter to President @Antonio_Tajani asking for clear signal from @Europarl_EN. pic.twitter.com/BvEDEhrINX — Manfred Weber (@ManfredWeber) July 17, 2017

That might have something to do with Tory MEPs being in the same group in the European Parliament as members of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party.

And, as Scrapbook reported recently, homophobic Ryszard Legutko was elected to lead the group alongside Tory MEP Syed Kamal.

Seems Kawczynski still has work to do…