A Loveless Marriage: The Conservatives and the European People's Party

The Conservatives are allied members of the European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP–ED) group in the European Parliament. But the link with the pro-European EPP has been a contentious issue within the Conservative Party. In deciding whether to remain within the EPP–ED, the Conservatives have to balance issues of domestic party management with their policy and office objectives at the European level. In this article we first assess David Cameron's commitment to form a new group, and then analyse the advantages and disadvantages of Conservative membership of the EPP–ED by examining roll-call votes and modelling two scenarios for a new group in 2009. We conclude that the pros and cons of forming a new group are finely balanced.