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European Conservatives and Reformists

This chapter focuses on the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which in 2014 accepted the radical right populists of the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party, alongside more moderate centre-right parties such as the UK Conservatives. To analyse the reasons behind the group’s composition, it uses Chapel Hill Expert Survey data on party positions in addition to interviews with leading figures from the main ECR parties. The chapter proposes the “respectable radicals” theory of group formation. In other words, radical parties like the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party play a two-level game in which they value perceived domestic “office” and “votes” benefits of European alliances more than “policy congruence”. In particular, being seen to sit with the UK Conservatives was considered advantageous by the Danish and Finnish parties while, for the UK Conservatives, these parties’ lack of extreme right historical baggage made them acceptable allies.