Copyright 2001 The Telegraph Group Limited
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

May 13, 2001, Sunday

SECTION: Pg. 05

LENGTH: 387 words

HEADLINE: Conservatives rebel over policy on euro

BYLINE: BY MARTIN BENTHAM Social Affairs Correspondent

BODY:
WILLIAM HAGUE was facing a new rebellion over Europe last night as it emerged that dozens of Conservative candidates are defying party policy by saying that they will never vote for Britain to enter the single currency. The official Tory line is to rule out the euro only for the next five years.

A total of 20 prospective Conservative MPs wrote to a political website saying that they would never back the euro. Another 15 said "yes" when asked if they would oppose joining the euro, even if it was recommended by Mr Hague.

All the answers were given within the past six months to the candidlist website run by Dr Sean Gabb, a university lecturer and anti-euro campaigner.

Tim Bonner, the prospective MP for Truro and St Austell, said that he would not scrap the pound until he could "fly to France on the back of a pig".

Prudence Dailey, who is fighting Pontypridd, said that Britain would join the euro only "over my dead body". Others are "utterly opposed" to the single currency, and would refuse ever to join the euro.

The remarks were published only hours after Mr Hague was forced to disown comments by Sir Peter Tapsell, a senior Conservative backbencher, in which the MP compared the European vision of Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroder to Hitler's personal manifesto.

Mr Tapsell's comments, in which he also likened Tony Blair's policy on the euro to Joseph Goebbels's propaganda, were seized upon by Labour and the Liberal Democrats as an example of Tory extremism.

The decision by so many Conservative MPs to oppose the euro is reminiscent of the splits which undermined the Tory campaign during the 1997 election.

Conservative Central Office insisted that the party was united around the policy of ruling out the euro for the next Parliament.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, however, claimed that the website replies and comments by Conservative MPs since 1997 showed that 71 Tories were opposed to ever joining the euro.

"The Tories are divided on the single currency between those who would rule it out only for a Parliament and those who would rule it out forever."

Lord Razzall, chairman of the Liberal Democrat election campaign, said: "With at least four rival Conservative policies on the euro, the Tories may regret their decision to make it the centrepiece of their campaign."