Tories find new ground to fight over Europe

Referendum deal fails to calm troops. Rifkind rejects calls for 60% majority

Tory backbenchers at opposite ends of the referendum debate quickly made plain that John Major's compromise pledge of a plebiscite on a single currency has not ended the wrangling.

Iain Duncan-Smith, one of the more cerebral sceptics, tried to raise the hurdle for the Euro to a 60 per cent majority while Sir Terence Higgins denounced the referendum idea as "incompatible with our system of parliamentary democracy".

As most of the Tory party heaved a sigh of relief over the deal between the Prime Minister and his stubbornly anti-referendum Chancellor, Sir Terence, a former Treasury minister, warned that if the Cabinet campaigned for a single currency and lost, it would have to go. "It would be fatuous of [ministers] to then say they had changed their mind. They would have no option but to resign," he said at Question Time.

Malcolm Rifkind, the Foreign Secretary, did not admit as much but said it was "crucially important" that the judgement of the electorate was respected.

Mr Rifkind, who had to prepare a Cabinet paper on the referendum options, was firmer with Mr Duncan-Smith, rejecting his assertion that any referendum on a single currency would need a 60 per cent majority as it would be constitutional change. "A simple majority would be the proper way of addressing the judgement of the electorate," he told the Chingford MP.

Robin Cook, Labour's foreign affairs spokesman, asked if Mr Rifkind recalled Mr Major telling Parliament he was "not in favour of referendums".He added: "When did the Prime Minister change his mind?"

But Mr Rifkind was having nothing to do with old positions. "The Government and the Conservative Party believe very strongly that it is important that, in circumstances where a general election might not be able to resolve matters of this importance, that the electorate should be able to do so through a referendum."

Europhobia was given full rein as Douglas Hogg, Minister for Agriculture, made a statement on further measures to try and help the beef industry through the BSE crisis.

The EU-imposed ban on British beef was not justified, Mr Hogg insisted. "It is not based on sound scientific analysis. It is disproportionate. It should be removed," he said.

Former Cabinet minister John Biffen said the industry did not want another "politically motivated" slaughter scheme initiated by those in Europe who did not have British interests at heart. And Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith, a member of the Tory 1922 committee executive, questioned the legality of the ban. "There is growing loss of confidence in the integrity of the ministers of the European Union," he said.

Arch-sceptic Nicholas Budgen, MP for Wolverhampton SW, railed against the "completely unnecessary slaughter" of healthy herds on family farms. "If the EU in its arbitrary, unaccountable way forces our farmers to make such a cruel sacrifice to the European gods it will be remembered for many a long year," he warned.