Pro-Euro Conservative Party
|
|
The Pro-Euro Conservative Party was set up by John Stevens, a deselected Member of the European Parliament, who believed that the UK Conservative Party was too Eurosceptic. They stood in the 1999 European Parliament Elections, in which they failed to win a seat while the Conservative Party got their best nationwide share of the vote since the 1983 general election. At the same time the United Kingdom Independence Party, which campaigns for withdrawal from the European Union, got 3 seats. This was despite a campaign in which the BBC was shown as giving equal coverage with the Pro-Euro Conservative Party as they did to the Conservative Party, and that a number of candidates were shown to be from other parties.
Apart from getting 3.8% of the vote in the 1999 Kensington & Chelsea against Michael Portillo, the Pro-Euro Conservative Party faded away with one consultants report claiming that their title consisted of the "four most unpopular words in the English language" (although why "pro" is so unpopular is not explained).
In 2002 the Pro-Euro Conservative Party merged into the Liberal Democrats.