Ukip and the Tories: in search of palatable EU partners

Uncertainty hangs over the future of the European parliamentary groupings of both the Conservative Party and the UK Independence Party (Ukip).

There are practical reasons for this. In the Conservative Party's case, its European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, set up after it left the far larger centre-right European People's Party group in 2009, is likely to be affected by two factors: a fall in the number of Conservative MEPs (currently standing at 26) thanks to a likely poor...