It’s not the first time fiat have binned off a model for uk sales, they’ve been doing it for years, they carried on selling the mk2 Punto as the “classic” till 2012 in other European countries while here they stopped selling it in 2005 when the grande appeared. No one should be surprised that when they bring the grande panda to the uk they are not going to want to arm sales of that car by offering a cheaper model.Article linked above also said:
The Panda will remain available on the continent until the end of the decade, owing to its continued strong sales.
Other countries such as those in Eastern Europe and especially Italy is full of people who would never splash out on the grande panda and so it’s stupid to loose those customers by not offering a car they can buy.