UK poll labelled euro referendum

LONDON, England -- The UK general election is effectively a referendum on the European single currency, opposition Conservative leader William Hague has said.

Hague used a television appearance on Wednesday night to tell voters that the euro and the battle to save the pound is at the heart of the June 7 poll.

He was speaking a day after the former Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher said she would "never" allow Britain to join the single currency.

Hague was asked if he believed there should be a referendum on the single European currency.

He replied: "This is the referendum on the euro. If Labour win this election the pound is sunk. If the Conservatives win the election, the pound stays."

But Hague insisted he did not want Britain to pull out of the European Union: "It's certainly not my policy to leave the EU.

"I can't possibly see it would be in the interests of this country to leave the EU," he told the BBC's Challenge the Leader programme.

Robin Oakley, CNN's European Political Editor, has said: "Hague is battling on a Eurosceptic platform, saying Labour would acquiesce in handing over more power to the European Union.

"His key slogan is "Save the Pound," and he says a Conservative government, if elected, would keep Britain out of the European single currency for the lifetime of the next Parliament."

Hague has vowed to make Europe the main focus during the final stages of the election campaign.

Earlier on Wednesday -- ignoring a protester wearing a Thatcher mask and carrying a placard saying "William, do as you're told" -- Hague attacked the European Union and Labour on tax policy and the euro.

"They always deny things in the European Commission and then it turns out several months later to have been true," Reuters reported.

"The fact is, in the European Union they are looking at these things (harmonisation of taxes), and it is one of the consequences of the euro, and we are very much opposed to it."

Hague also mocked Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair for suggesting it could be patriotic to join the euro if economic conditions were right.

He said: "I don't know what is supposed to be patriotic about British interest rates set in Frankfurt, which would be the result of joining the euro."