BOLTON North-East Tory candidate Robert Wilson has joined local Tory Minister Tom Sackville in defying John Major and declaring his opposition to the European Single Currency.

Mr Wilson will announce his position in his election address despite the official Cabinet line that Britain will "wait and see'' on the issue until negotiations are complete.

If the Tories were re-elected and decided to recommend joining any European Monetary Union (EMU), they would hold a referendum on the issue.

But Mr Wilson would vote against any such recommendation and referendum if he succeeds Peter Thurnham as the MP.

He told the BEN of his hard-line stance as the Tory division on Europe grew with Tory Party vice-chairman Dame Angela Rumbold joining the growing grass roots revolt on the single currency by saying she would not vote for it.

Mr Wilson said that his election address would say he saw no convincing argument for joining as single currency and that it would involve ceding British sovereignty to Europe - something he could not accept.

Businessman and former Reading councillor Mr Wilson said: "I would vote against a single currency."

Mr Sackville, standing in Bolton West, also stepped up his campaign on the issue with a new leaflet stressing his position as "THE Eurosceptic candidate'' despite a warning from the Tory high command that Ministers should not put outright opposition to EMU in their election addresses.

Junior Home Office Minister Mr Sackville has already issued a leaflet saying he did not believe that a single currency "would be in Britain's best interests from either an economic or political point of view, neither now nor in the forseeable future''.

He is expected to repeat this opposition in his official election address despite the warnings to Ministers issued by senior Tory sources after Agriculture MInister Angela Browning made a similar claim in one of her election leaflets.

Mr Sackville said that if Labour with its pro-European views won the election, an inexperienced Tony Blair would be putty in Brussels hands with "the reins of power irreversibly transferred to a federal government run from across the Channel''.

He said that if Bolton West electors wanted an independent Britain they had to vote for him as "the Eurosceptic candidate who will actually defend Britain's independence in Europe.''

Labour's John Crausby, standing against Mr Wilson, said the Tories were split from top to bottom on the issue of Europe, locally and nationally.

Two local Labour candidates are to escape challenges from the Referendum Party because of their alleged hostility to Europe. Worsley's Terry Lewis and Makerfield's Ian McCartney are said to support Sir James Goldsmith's Party's demand for a referendum on not just EMU but the whole question of Britain's future in Europe.

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