EUSELESS TORIES

Tory chief wants to quit EU, says Clarke (Phillip Webster and Melissa Kite, July 11, 2003, Times of London)

KENNETH CLARKE upset the Conservative Party's truce on Europe last night by accusing Iain Duncan Smith of pursuing a policy that would mean withdrawal from the European Union.

The former Conservative Chancellor alleged that the man who defeated him for the Tory leadership wanted to reduce the EU to a "free trade area and little more", and that his European stance was "in flat contradiction" to everything the Conservative Party had stood for when it was in government.

Mr Clarke's intervention, played down last night by the Tory leadership, came as Mr Duncan Smith made his most important speech so far on
European policy.

He went to Prague to call for a "democratic revolution" to achieve his vision of a "new Europe" of national democracies, and not of "soulless
supranational institutions".

In a fierce attack on the Franco-German axis, he accused "old Europe" of trying to bully the rest into believing that they had to accept their cherished ambitions, such as the euro and the new constitution, or else.

But Mr Duncan Smith tried to put himself at the head of a campaign by Europe's Centre Right to rally the incoming entrants to the EU to a future in which they did not have to sign up to the euro, the constitution or the common foreign and defence policies of the EU.

Mr Duncan Smith declared the Conservatives' commitment to membership of the EU. Although his speech was strongly Eurosceptic it did not point to withdrawal and aides said that members of the Shadow Cabinet were entirely happy with his address.

Who would trust a party that hasn't the courage of its own convictions? The Tories have been squandering the British public's innate distrust of the continent since they forced Margaret Thatcher out of office over the issue and they're still trying to have it both ways--pathetic. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 11, 2003 7:55 AM