MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ditch Anglo-Spanish agreement, says Ancram.

Britain's Conservative Party will not be bound by any constitutional agreement between the Government of Britain and Spain which does not have “the full democratic consent of the people of Gibraltar,” Shadow Foreign Secretary Michael Ancram told the Tory annual conference in Blackpool.

Mr Ancram called on Tony Blair to "accept the verdict of the people of Gibraltar last November and ditch this unworthy agreement forever." The Tory spokesman also vowed his party will fight "tooth and nail'' to halt the new EU constitution. And as negotiations continued over the text of the new document, he accused the UK Government of "throwing in the towel." Mr Ancram appealed to Tory activists to work to protect British national "pride" which had been undermined by Labour. Addressing the annual conference in Blackpool, he renewed calls for a referendum on the constitution and announced a petition campaign.

Calling for a new Europe of democracies he attacked Labour's foreign policy describing it as "a shameful catalogue of abandonment, betrayal, sell-out, dishonesty and total breach of trust." The people of Zimbabwe and Burma had been "abandoned" despite promises of action and the people of Gibraltar "betrayed" over "a secret deal to share sovereignty with Spain''.

"I have seen the horrors of Mugabe's Zimbabwe. We will not go down the appeasement road of ?quiet diplomacy'. We will not let up until Mugabe, his financial backers and his whole brutal regime are gone and gone forever.''

A Tory government would put national interest at the heart of its policy and would be "true to our friends and true to our word'', he said. Stronger ties would be built with the Commonwealth and the relationship with the US made "healthier'', Mr Ancram said, attacking "the anti-American machinations'' of the French to undermine Nato. Mr Ancram stressed the Conservatives would fight the new EU constitution.

He said: "We will fight this damaging constitution with everything we've got. For a start the British people have the right to say yes or no in a referendum. Other EU countries are having referendums to decide. What is wrong with the British people that we cannot be trusted to decide? We will promote a petition to Parliament requiring a referendum because even this Prime Minister cannot ignore forever the collective voice of the British people.''

Mr Blair had already "thrown in the towel'' in the negotiations and would not protect British interests, he said. The Swedes, by voting against the single currency, had proved that nothing was inevitable in Europe. "We believe in Britain and that means fighting for Britain and that means opposing the European constitution'. I don't know about you but I am tired of this Government trying to make me ashamed of being British. I am fed up with seeing our history rewritten, of Labour ministers apologising for our past. I have one burning ambition. I want to be proud of my country again.'' The foreign policy of a future Conservative government would "give Britain back its pride." "I am sick and tired of a government that mocks our traditions, our culture, our currency and even our very Britishness." The Government was "capitulating'' to those who wanted to build a "single European state'', he said. "We want to make the European Union work. We don't want a tired old Europe, a prisoner of its own bureaucracy, living in a haze of ingrained anti-Americanism. We want a new Europe of democracies, ready to serve the ideals of a new generation, working together in a spirit of new enterprise.

"We want a Europe where power flows upwards from nation states and their peoples and not downwards from Brussels and its remote elites. One of this Government's most outrageous lies is that diversity in Europe is impossible and that political integration is inevitable. Nothing in politics is inevitable, not if you fight it hard enough.'' The anti-euro vote in Sweden had "opened the door to a new diverse Europe''. Britain should follow their example and "carry forward the torch of freedom and democracy''.

Source: Gibraltar Chronicle.