A couple of months ago, this blog made a plaintive call for the people of Poland to throw out their authoritarian government in favour of the Civic Platform, and for David Cameron to distance his Conservatives from the reactionary politics of President Lech Kaczyński.  Last night, the Poles came up trumps.

In elections to the national parliament, the Law and Justice Party (PiS), dominated by the Kaczyński twin brothers, were absolutely thrashed by the resurgent Civic Platform (PO), under pro-business Donald Tusk.  Both parties greatly increased their share of the vote, but whereas the PiS saw theirs increase by 5%, the PO’s jumped by an astonishing 17%, catapulting them into a large plurality of seats.

Moreover, the parties that have lost out are the very ones with whom the PiS’s association had caused classical liberals the most consternation.  Having dropped out of the governing coalition with the PiS, the right-wing Catholic nationalist League of Polish Families (LPR) and the left-wing ’sons of the soil’ Self Defence of the Republic of Poland (SRP) merged their lists.

And were annihilated.  Whereas the two major parties increased their shares of the vote by a total of 22%, the combined fascist-socialist LPR list won a miserable 1%: down from a notional 19% only two years ago.  I might well laugh.  I do.

The new government, under Tusk, will look vastly different to its predecessor.  First, the PO can form a coalition with the centrists, avoiding the disparate coalition that collapsed so spectacularly this summer.  There’ll be no vested interests forcing the government to adopt crazy pet projects on hammering homosexuals, banning Sunday trading, increasing farmers’ payments, and so on.  Instead, the PO can be held to its manifesto programme.

And what a refreshing programme it is.  A flat income/corporation/sales tax of 15%, independence for the central bank, decentralisation of budgets to local authorities, curbing labour cartel power, privatisation of large parts of healthcare and higher education, stripping MPs of their parliamentary immunity to reduce corruption, and liberalising abortion and divorce laws.

And, yet, the main issue that the international media focus on is the Europhilia of the party.  Do we not realise how backwards Poland is?  How threatened it was by the threat of a Piłsudski-worshipping fascist government sending the country back into the dark ages?

Given that, a more favourable approach to the Euro is a small price to pay, particularly when most of the regulation and oppression suffered by Polish people comes from domestic government.  Maybe, when the Poles give themselves freedom - as Tusk promises - they’ll realise that the EU is a hindrance, and adopt a more strident line towards supranational interventionism.

For that to happen required a change of government.  Fortunately, Poland has just that: out go the old guard of nationalists, socialists, and agrarians united, and in come the suited business-friendly liberty-lovers of the Civic Platform.  Given the programme on which the party ran, Tusk has a lot to live up to, but one thing’s certain about his performance: it can’t be worse than his predecessor’s.

After weeks of waiting, Polish President Lech Kaczyński has finally dismissed four ministers from the two smaller partners in the three-party governing coalition. It leaves the larger Law and Justice Party - led by Kaczyński’s brother Jaroslaw - governing on its own, and, without the support of a majority of the national legislature, the Sejm, requires them to go back to the polls.

All very uninteresting so far. However, Law and Justice (PiS) has long been mooted as a potential partner for David Cameron’s new European endeavour outside the European People’s Party (EPP), and, as such, their fortunes matter an awful lot to the New Tories’ approach to European issues.

Unlike the Czech Civic Democrats, who have already signed up to the new grouping, the PiS are not liberal in any sense, and their social attitudes are highly authoritarian: hardening Poland’s already strictly anti-choice abortion laws, prohibiting all recognition of homosexual relationships, banning trading on Sundays, and reintroducing the death penalty.

However, this streak was not enough to appease its coalition partners, who are even more authoritarian: the homophobic Catholic nationalists of the League of Polish Families and the back-to-the-Earth agrarian revanchist socialists of Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland (who, indicative of the unifying ideology of oppression practised by both left and right, are merging!). The PiS itself lost seven MPs earlier this year that thought the government’s position on abortion was too soft on rape victims. Charming.

There are a range of palatable options, though. The largest is the Civic Platform (the sister party of the Czech Civic Democrats), who are encouragingly liberal on both economic and a number of social issues. Their support is concentrated in the less agrarian west of Poland, and amongst the wealthier and better-educated, which, with the Polish economy booming, puts it in a strong position. Another classically liberally-inclined group is the Real Politics Union, which sometimes describes itself as ‘libertarian’. Sadly, it is a damning indictment of Polish political bias that even these ‘libertarians’ deny women their right to an abortion.

If David Cameron is interested in even trying to reform the Conservatives, he has to stay well clear of the rabidly vitriolic fascists that he has threatened to jump into bed with. Moreover, when Poland goes to the poll to elect the new Sejm and its government, the people will determine not just the course taken by their own country, but by the rest of central Europe, which is dominated by Poland. If freedom is to flourish in that part of the world, it is essential that Law and Justice be defeated. For the Tories to give them the time of day is indefensible.

The Times reported today that a Polish university is opening a branch in Shepherd’s Bush, in west London. This is a marvellous development, allowing young Polish people to develop skills that will get them off the bottom of the wage ladder and encouraging them to settle down here. It is also another step forward in the emergence of a truly globalised education system.

However, I did also notice this, too:

The Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz [sic.] has about 20,000 students, many of whom study part-time.  It is one of about 300 private universities and was ranked 15th by Newsweek Poland last year.

300 private universities!? And that’s after just 15 years of them being legal. The United Kingdom has one. It just goes to show that, despite five decades of oppression at the hands of the Nazis and the Soviet Union, the Polish people’s individualism and entrepreneurism was only incubated, and has flourished since the fall of the Iron Curtain. If that’s the way Poles do it, we need more, not fewer, Poles over here.