Ancram calls for British ‘pride’ against Europe
Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram has warned Labour that he plans to promote a nationwide petition to Parliament demanding a referendum on the new draft EU constitution.
Addressing the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, Mr Ancram accused Tony Blair of lying about the war in Iraq and called the Cabinet a “rotten bunch, past their sell-by date”.
He declared that the government’s foreign policy had been “a shameful catalogue of abandonment, betrayal, sell-out, dishonesty and total breach of trust” and vowed, if elected, to fight for the rights of ‘abandoned’ people in Zimbabwe, Burma and Gibraltar.
Mr Ancram railed that the government had “thrown in the towel” on the EU document and declared that the Tories would “fight this damaging constitution with everything we’ve got”.
The foreign affairs spokesman advocated a future foreign policy that would “give Britain back its pride” and claimed he was “sick and tired of a government that mocks our traditions, our culture, our currency and even our very Britishness.”
Foreign secretary Jack Straw said the draft constitution was not perfect but the UK was looking to change it and added, “Mr Ancram’s speech says everything about the Conservative Party’s visceral opposition to the European Union and Britain’s place in it.”
