THE Tory right asserted itself last night as the spectre of renewed warfare over Europe fell over next month's Conservative Party conference.
Dr Brian Mawhinney insisted the Conservative Party was united in support of the government's position on a single currency - and in its opposition to a federal Europe.
But the party chairman struggled to be heard above the conflicting claims of Europhiles and Euro sceptics - triggered by Mr Malcolm Rifkind's warning that a single currency could divide the EU, and by yesterday's robust attack by six Tory elder statesmen on the party's "little Englanders".
In a stark warning to Mr John Major, the six "grandees" - Sir Edward Heath, Lord Howe Lord Whitelaw, Lord Carrington Sir Leon Brittan and Mr Douglas Hurd - signalled they would give no ground to the party's increasingly dominant Euro sceptical tendency. In a letter to the London Independent, they asserted: "Britain's future lies as a committed member of an interdependent Europe, as a country which sees the European Union as an opportunity not as a threat."
Determined to pre empt any further right wing moves to have the government rule out the possibility of joining a single currency in the lifetime of the next parliament, the signatories declared: "For us now to rule out British membership of a single currency would be to betray our national interests . . . To countenance withdrawal from the European Union would be to court disaster."
Shattering the party's uneasy truce over Europe, they continued: "The British instinct is to lead, not walk away. Our greatest patriots have never been little Englanders."
The Thatcherite wing opened immediate return fire, with the former chancellor, Mr Norman Lamont, branding the six "dinosaurs, not grandees". Mr Lamont, choosing to interpret the letter as an attack on Mr Rifkind, declared: "The reality is that Britain will not join a single currency under a Conservative government."
Mr Hurd, the former foreign secretary, said the party's pro European wing was now prepared to mount "a robust defence of its position". Party managers confirmed that a large number of motions have been tabled for next month's conference calling for a referendum in advance of a cabinet decision to join a single currency.
. Sir Edward Heath condemned the dangerously out of date little Englanders" who wanted to return Europe to the past. The former, prime minister also criticised some of the Cabinet, saying they had yet to learn from Winston
Churchill's message of reconciliation between nations after the second World War. Sir Edward warned John Major to stick to his policy of not deciding before the general election whether Britain should, join a single currency.