Pound is doomed, says Hague

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MAY 26. The debate on whether Britain should keep the pound or join the euro was given a dramatic twist by the Tories today when they set up a countdown clock indicating the days, hours, minutes and seconds which voters still have to save the pound.

The countdown is to run until June 7, the polling day for a general election, and a vote for Labour that day would mean the end of the British currency, the Tory chief, Mr. William Hague warned saying if Labour won ``they will begin taking us into the euro on June 8. The pound was ``doomed''.

The Tories, fighting the election on a ``Keep the pound'' platform, were rattled by the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair's unexpectedly aggressive offensive on the issue when he said on Friday that Mr. Hague was ``playing with fire'' and his policy on Europe put at risk thousands of British jobs. In a speech dripping with references to Britain's historical links with Europe, an angry Mr. Blair mocked the Tories' theme of patriotism and said: ``True patriotism is standing up for the British national interest first. And in the 21st century, that patriotism demands that we do not turn our backs on Europe.'' London, he reminded his audience in Edinburgh, was once a ``great European city.''

This was his second major intervention on Europe in less than 24 hours surprising the Tories by the speed with which he had pushed the fight on the issue right back into the heart of Tory territory. His strong pro-euro speech came after he told The Financial Times that his Government, in its second term, was confident of winning a referendum on joining the single currency prompting Mr. Hague to allege that Labour was preparing to take Britain into Europe ``by hook or crook''. He charged Labour with planning to rig the referendum in favour of euro, and this morning, in a stark warning he said this was going to be the last general election in an ``independent'' Britain. A Labour victory 12 days later and Britain's subsequent entry into Europe would mark the end of a sovereign Britain.

In the last 48 hours, the whole equation on Europe seems to have changed as Labour began to look like a winner on an issue which Tories had regarded as their strongest trump card. They had been daring Mr. Blair to engage them on Europe, accusing Labour of fudging the issue, and even within Labour, the buzz word had been caution because of a fear of a strong emotional public reaction to ``surrendering'' the pound.

In the event, however, Mr. Blair is seen to have called the Tory bluff and Mr. Hague in an interview with The Independent today acknowledged that his party's fight on euro was as good as over. He said the new Labour Government was ``highly likely'' to win a referendum by posing the question in a manner that people would be conned into saying ``yes''. What observers described as by far his clearest admission of defeat on Europe was his statement terming the June 7 election itself a referendum and that people had only 12 days to decide whether they wanted to scrap the pound or keep it. They were surprised that he should have chosen to turn a losing electoral battle into a referendum on an issue which the party sees as its great strength.

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Section  : International
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