The Conservatives have rejected suggestions that the UK Independence Party's election success will force them to adopt a more eurosceptic stance.

In the European parliament elections the UKIP took a 17 per cent share of the vote, while the Tories were on 27 per cent.

Commentators were suggesting on Monday that the result will leave Conservative leader Michael Howard under pressure from right-wingers to adopt a more eurosceptic policy stance.

And new UKIP MEP Robert Kilroy-Silk predicted the Conservatives were "probably coming increasingly more towards the UKIP line on this particular issue, as we expect them to in the next two weeks or more".

"I don't think this is a protest vote. We are the only party throughout the election that had a very clear, straightforward policy," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We are the only party that talked about Europe and didn't actually tell any lies.

"We say we can withdraw from Europe and get our country back from Brussels. That's what... the majority wanted."

Shift

But the Conservatives said their policy would not shift as a result of the UKIP's success.

The party's deputy leader, Michael Ancram, said the result would mean "that we are going to have to make sure that people understand that we do want to try to reform Europe so that Europe works better".

"We have made it clear that we don't want to leave Europe," he added.

"If you look at the UKIP vote, yes there are people voting for it who do want to pull out of Europe, but there are equally people who voted to give a signal at this European election that they wanted to see a firmer stand taken against the way Europe is going at the moment."