JOHN MAJOR and Tony Blair each played the patriotic card last night, as Mr Jacques Santer, the President of the European Commission, made an undiplomatic intervention in the British election campaign.
But Mr Major's ongoing attempt to play the federalist card against Labour was again overshadowed by speculation over the succession battle for the Tory leadership, and reports that party loyalists are already laying plans to persuade him to stay until the autumn after expected defeat on May 1st.
In a hard-hitting speech to activists in York, Mr Major claimed Mr Blair would put his foot "on the accelerator to a federal Europe" if Labour won the election. He sought to turn Mr Santer's intervention on Mr Blair, citing it as evidence of the threat posed to Britain at the forthcoming EU summit, marking the end of the Dutch presidency, in Amsterdam.
Mr Santer made a barely-coded attack on British Euro-sceptics, branding them "doom merchants". He called for an extension of majority voting in the EU to avoid the "vicious circle of paralysis".
Seizing on Mr Santer's words, Mr Major declared: "I disagree. Unlike the Labour leader, I will retain our vetoes. If it is right for Britain, I will keep my feet on the brakes. Mr Blair would go to Amsterdam and put his foot on the accelerator to a federal Europe."
But Labour swiftly distanced itself from Mr Santer. A party spokesmen initially accused him of interference, saying: "The British people are perfectly capable of making up their own minds about the issues in the election without interventions from outside."
The Shadow Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, said later: "Mr Santer, who was appointed with, Mr Major's approval, should be in no doubt that a Labour government will make decisions based on British needs in the British interest under the strong leadership of Tony Blair.
Leadership, meanwhile, was the theme of Mr Blair's fourth big speech of the campaign. In his most personal attack to date, Mr Blair accused the Prime Minister of "incompetent" leadership, contrasting his own record in transforming the Labour Party with Mr Major's failure to stamp his authority on a Conservative Party "literally falling about his ears".
Setting out his vision of Britain's place in the world, Mr Blair declared: "I know how to negotiate. I know how to lead. John Major can do neither."
Claiming that Labour was the true "patriotic" party, Mr Blair said the Tories were now "introspective nationalists, fearful of the wider world".
He said They have made a fetish out of isolation and called it strength. As a result, we are no longer respected abroad. We are no longer listened to. Our influence is at an all-time low. A narrow, crabbed nationalism - the old force of the right - is reborn in the Conservative Party. It is a natural reaction to insecurity and tear in a changed world, but it leads nowhere."
Mr Blair said: "John Major has led his party so pitifully on Europe that there are not one but two Conservative Parties fighting this election. Because Mr Major has by turns caved in to one faction and then the other, but offered leadership to neither, we now have the undignified spectacle of a prime minister of Great Britain, in the middle of an election campaign, with the governing party literally falling about his ears. His candidates don't agree. His ministers don't agree. Senior members of his cabinet don't agree. And, as ever, he tries to agree with them all."
Senior cabinet members Sir Patrick Mayhew and Mrs Gillian Shephard were reported last night to be among a group of loyalists planning a post-defeat approach to Mr Major, to persuade him to defer a leadership contest by remaining in the post at least until the autumn.