FORMER Labour leader Neil Kinnock yesterday fired a broadside at the
Government's Europe policy as he prepared to take up his new job as a
Commissioner in Brussels.
Mr Kinnock, who becomes one of Britain's two permanent representatives
on the European Commission next month, accused Mr John Major of failing
to take up opportunities that could benefit the country.
However, he denied vehemently that he was ready to ''go native'' as he
went into his new job co-ordinating transport policy.
''Wherever you are going, you have to retain your sense of discernment
and I don't think you could do a job like being a Commissioner without
retaining that,'' he said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Mr Kinnock, 52, who will join his wife, Glenys, a Euro-MP, claimed
that damaging political rows in Britain would have little impact on his
standing at the EC.
''I don't think my position is undermined but I do think that
Britain's position is undermined by some of the failures to take
opportunities that really do exist in the relationship between the
countries that make up the Community,'' he said.
''When the British Government drags its feet on the development of the
social dimension of the single market, it does not just inflict
disadvantage on British working people but inflicts disadvantage on the
country generally.
''Britain is not taking the opportunity under the current Government
to seize the agenda and lead opinion in the EU in the way I think our
country could,'' he said.
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