MR JOHN MAJOR yesterday accused fellow European politicians of having "priced their workers out of jobs" and warned an opportunistic Labour Party would do the same in Britain if it won power.

The British Prime Minister was making a keynote speech hours after presiding at a cabinet meeting to discuss why his party remains deeply unpopular in Britain despite a buoyant economy.

"Unemployment in Europe has been getting worse for about 30 years. In the last 20 years, for ,every job created in Europe the United States his created four" he told a London audience. "We should ask why. And the uncomfortable answer is that Europe's politicians have quite simply priced their workers out of jobs."

Mr Major said Britain, where the official jobless figure stands at 7.9 per cent of the workforce, had more people in work and fewer out of it than any other major European country.

The reason was that it was cheaper to employ people in Britain than in France, Germany, Italy or Spain because of low non wage costs, Mr Major said.

He attacked the idea of a minimum wage and the EU Social Chapter, designed to set common employment standards in the EU, as "a threat to jobs".

Labour, leading the Conservatives in opinion polls by over 20 points, is committed to both ideas saying it will reverse Mr Major's refusal to sign up to the Social Chapter.

"The Social Chapter and minimum wage ... are economic handcuffs," Mr Major said. "They are a guarantee of higher unemployment.

He said Labour had always opposed Conservative policies to extend opportunity and choice.