Pro-Euro Conservative Party

Pro-Euro Conservative Party
Founded	10 March 1999
Dissolved	10 December 2001
Split from	Conservative Party
Merged into	Liberal Democrats
Ideology	One Nation Conservatism, Pro-Europeanism
Political position	Centre-right
Colours	Blue, Yellow

The Pro-Euro Conservative Party was a British political party announced by John Stevens and Brendan Donnelly in February 1999, formed to contest the 1999 European Parliament Elections. The founders were Members of the European Parliament who had resigned from the UK Conservative Party in protest at its anti-euro stance. Their reported aim was to replace the Eurosceptic Conservative leadership of William Hague with that of Kenneth Clarke. Stevens later said that they had intended to push Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten and other pro-Europeans in the Conservative Party into "an SDP-style breakaway, in combination with the Liberal Democrats". The party disbanded in 2001.

The party said it was "based on traditional Conservative values", and they self-defined as "One Nation Conservatives". The main aim of the party was for the United Kingdom to join the euro, also known as "the single currency", for economic reasons. At the time the British pound was strong against the euro, which had dropped in value to be equal to the US dollar, and the then-Governor of the Bank of England Eddie George said that it would be "an act of faith" for Britain to join the Eurozone.

The party manifesto, published on 17 May 1999 and titled "Time to decide", argued for greater powers for the European Parliament over the European Commission and the European Central Bank, reform of the commission, reduction of countries' veto powers, reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, a European defence and security policy, stronger political and economic ties to the Balkans, and faster EU enlargement in eastern Europe.

...
Wikipedia