group. After the European election it was announced that the Conservatives were leaving the EPP-ED and forming a new group, the European Conservatives and Reformists. On 22 June 2009, the first official list of the new group's members was released. The group held its inaugural meeting on 24 June, during which Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope was named interim leader. The first election for the group leadership was also scheduled for 14 July, pitting interim leader Kirkhope against fellow Briton Geoffrey Van Orden. However, both Conservative leadership candidates were forced to forfeit the leadership in order to prevent the group from collapsing, when then-Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott defied his party whip and stood for one of the vice-presidency posts despite pledges the previous week that Polish MEP Michał Kamiński would be backed for it. Kaminski's bid for Vice-President of the European Parliament subsequently failed, and the Poles threatened to abandon the new caucus unless Kaminski was made the group leader in the parliament. Similarly, UKIP helped found a new European Parliament Group, Europe of Freedom and Democracy, after the other parties in UKIP's pre-election European parliamentary grouping, Independence/Democracy, had polled badly. Because two BNP candidates were elected to the European Parliament at 2009 election, the UK Government announced that it would provide them both with only the bare minimum level of support, denying them the ready access to officials and information that the other 70 British MEPs received. Summary of the post-election European Parliament Groupings of each party See also 2009 European Parliament election Members of the European Parliament for the United Kingdom 2009–2014 (alphabetic order) Treaty of Lisbon 2009 United Kingdom local elections 2010 United Kingdom general election Opinion polling for the 2010 United Kingdom general election References External links BBC coverage List of UK candidates for each region United Kingdom 2009 2009 elections in the United Kingdom June 2009 events in the United Kingdom