MRS Pauline Green, Labour group leader in the European Parliament, has
written to every one of Britain's 32 Tory Euro-MPs asking if they back
the election manifesto of the European Peoples' Party.
Mrs Green, who last week won the personal endorsement of Mr John Smith
as Britain's challenger for the EP's socialist group leadership, sought
to exploit the Tories' internal feud over the social chapter and
federalism.
The EPP, British Tories included, supports federalism and the social
chapter, but most Tories in Westminster reject both ideas, which are the
heart of the divisions in the Conservative Party.
Mr Douglas Hurd, Foreign Secretary, is currently chairing the
Conservatives' manifesto committee which is expected to deny Euro-MPs
the right to campaign for a federal Europe or the social chap
ter.
The issue will be at the centre of the Euro-election campaign which
the Conservatives will join soon in a desperate attempt to fend off
widely predicted heavy losses in the June poll.
Labour wants the election to be, in effect, a referendum on Mr Major's
leadership and the beginning of the end of the Conservatives' long
period in power.
Tory Euro-MPs insist they will campaign on a British manifesto which
could bring a rift with the EPP.
Mr Smith has said Labour supports the EP socialist group's manifesto,
but is not bound by every word of it.
Mrs Green, waving a copy of the EPP manifesto, said the Conservatives
were trying a con-trick. ''Their leader is actually a vice president of
that group,'' she said.
''They vote with them, meet with them, they are fully integrated with
them in the European Parliament, and they tell us they will continue to
be after the election.''
Mrs Green said the Euro-Tories had ''absolute commitments'' to many
policies the party rejected and ridiculed at home.
''John Major says British Conservatives are not bound by this
manifesto -- they will fight on their own platform. Well, they can't
have it both ways.''
She said the Tories' lies were manifest -- Matrix Churchill,
Westminster council, taxation.
''Never has a party of government sunk to such depths,'' she said.
''They are just the same in Europe.''
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