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Phi100: New Tory European grouping an ‘embarrassment’ they tried to bury

17:53 | Insider Research

The Conservative party’s new European grouping is an embarrassment which they tried to bury amid coverage of the Speaker elections, in the view of the UK’s political community. 

That’s the latest result from the PoliticsHome Phi100 panel, which includes parliamentarians from all the main parties as well as think tank heads, party strategists and leading media commentators. 

Fifty five per cent of the Phi100 felt that the new grouping - 'The European Conservatives and Reformists' was an embarrassment.  The proportion taking the opposite view was thirty seven per cent. 

Ninety three per cent of right leaning panellists took the view that the Conservative grouping was a success. 

But comparable majorities of left-leaning, non-aligned, and Lib Dem panellists disagreed.

There was a similar split on the issue of whether the timing of the announcement – as the Speaker candidates were being announced – was a deliberate attempt to ‘bury bad news’. 

Panellists strongly took the view that it was, with the exception of right-leaning panellists, fifty five per cent of whom judged that it was a coincidence. 

Overall, seventy per cent viewed the epsisode as a deliberate attempt to bury bad news. 

'Nativists, loonies'

A left-leaning media panellist said: ‘Their new friends aren't neo-nazis but they are nativists, know-nothings and loonies.’

A Lib Dem concurred, describing the other group members as ‘a rag-bag of extremists and fringe parties’, and concluding that ‘the grouping will have and deserves no credibility’. 

A right-leaning panellist argued that move had been a success on the grounds that ‘it was promised and delivered.’