Mandelson slams Cameron's 'isolation' policy (Roundup)

Nov 5, 2009, 14:04 GMT

Brussels/London - Britain's Conservative opposition leader David Cameron would lead the country into isolation within Europe if he were elected prime minister next year, a top government minister said Thursday.

   'If the Tories get into government, we now know what will obsess them: picking fights in Europe and isolating Britain in the European Union,' Peter Mandelson, a former EU commissioner and one of the chief architects of Labour party policy, told journalists in Brussels via video link.

   Mandelson was speaking a day after Cameron admitted that his party would be too late to call a referendum on the EU's Lisbon Treaty if, as expected, it wins a general election in the spring.

   Instead, Cameron promised to pass laws ensuring that any future transfer of power to the EU would have to face a referendum in Britain first, and guaranteeing that British law would 'have supremacy over EU law.'

   He also pledged to renegotiate parts of EU legislation on issues such as social and employment policy if he became prime minister.

   Mandelson, who is one of Labour's top strategists, said that 'instead of one Lisbon Treaty referendum, Mr Cameron is offering a (British) sovereignty law which would effectively cancel Britain's acceptance of the primacy of EU law governing Europe's single market and other areas of its competence.'

   'David Cameron is now promising to plunge Britain's EU relations into semi-permanent crisis,' he said.

   Mandelson's remarks echoed those of France's Europe minister, Pierre Lellouche, who on Thursday condemned Cameron's speech in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.

   'It's pathetic, it's just very sad to see Britain, so important in Europe, just cutting itself out from the rest and disappearing from the radar map,' said Lellouche.

   Conservative Europe spokesman William Hague dismissed Lellouche's attack.

   The Tories have long been divided over Europe, with some in the party favouring EU membership and others opposing it. That divide has deepened with the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which scored a surprise victory in European polls in July.

   Labour is keen to exploit the divide, portraying the Conservatives as fanatical Eurosceptics who would be likely to damage Britain's standing in the EU were they to come to power.