The British Labour Party latched on to an anti-European tirade by the former Tory prime minister Baroness Thatcher today as a potential new vote-winner in its bid for a landslide election victory.
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Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown: claims the Tories are split over Europe.
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Lady Thatcher declared yesterday she would never allow Britain to give up the pound even though her party's policy is to rule out membership of the euro only for the five-years of the next parliament.
"The Conservative Party is split asunder, divided from top to bottom on the question of Europe", Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Gordon Brown told reporters.
A top Labour source told reporters Lady Thatcher had given the party all the ammunition it needed to neutralise the Tory campaign on Europe. "She has played right into our hands," the source said.
A Gallup survey for the Sunsuggested the Labour Party would romp home on June 7th, nearly doubling its majority to 335 in the 659-member Commons and slashing the Tory presence by half to as few as 82 seats.
An ICM poll for the Guardianwas a little kinder to Conservative leader Mr William Hague, putting him 13 points behind Labour. That would still give Mr Blair a majority of about 145 compared with his present 179-seat majority.
Lady Thatcher yesterday assailed Mr Blair's Europe policy as a national betrayal. "To surrender the pound, to surrender our power of self-government, would betray all that past generations down the ages lived and died to defend," she said in a speech inPlymouth.
Mr Brown said there were now 75 Conservative candidatesopenly agreeing with her and ripping a hole in Mr Hague's carefully constructed euro policy.