Senior Tories accused the Campaign for Racial Equality of "moral blackmail" yesterday, as Mr Michael Portillo declared he would not sign its pledge to keep race out of the general election.
The shadow chancellor said Mr William Hague had signed the pledge on behalf of the entire Conservative Party. However, Labour sought to exploit the apparent disarray in the Tory high command and said Mr Portillo's decision proved there was "no discipline, leadership or unity" under Mr Hague.
Mr Portillo's intervention in the pre-election race row came as Labour stepped up pressure on Mr Hague to sack a member of his front-bench team, Mr James Cran, for refusing to sign the election compact.
The CRE pledge allows for "robust political debate" on issues like asylum while committing MPs to avoid "causing or exploiting prejudice and discrimination on the grounds of race or nationality".
Mr Portillo said Mr Hague had signed the pledge on behalf of the whole party. He told a meeting at the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff that the party chairman, Mr Michael Ancram, would "come down like a ton of bricks" on any Tory candidate using provocative or racist language.
This forced an immediate retreat by the party's vice-chairman, Mr Steve Norris, who said on Thursday that Mr Hague and Mr Ancram would expect all Tory candidates to sign the CRE pledge. Mr Norris, who has responsibility for ethnic minorities and young people, maintained there was nothing in the document "that any decent person wouldn't sign".
However, he understood the objections of some Tory MPs who regarded themselves as "beyond reproach" on the race issue, and considered the CRE approach "patronising".
Mr Portillo, himself the son of an immigrant, suggested MPs should not be drawn into "signing every well-intentioned declaration". Explaining his decision, he said: "No, I haven't signed it because I speak for myself and I say that I am offering equality of esteem to everybody in this country."
Asked again if he would sign, Mr Portillo continued: "No. I don't like signing pieces of paper, questionnaires and things that are thrust at me. You know, I went into public life to speak for myself and I will use my own language and my own words."
Mr Portillo's declaration followed an attack by the former agriculture minister, Mr John Gummer, who accused the CRE of effectively "blackmailing" MPs "to sign up or be damned". Ms Julie Kirkbride MP echoed Mr Gummer's view that, while finding nothing objectionable in the CRE's aims, policy-making by pressure groups was "a travesty of democracy" and interfered with the constitutional independence of MPs.
`We are answerable to our constituents who can ask our views on race or any other issue," she said.
Mr Phil Barnett, director of policy at the CRE, rejected suggestions that the organisation was blackmailing candidates.
"It is nothing of the sort," he said. "It is simply a brokered agreement between the parties that has attempted to set a standard for the debate about race and race relations in the election."