Europhile joins Conservative race

LONDON, England -- The first pro-euro candidate has entered the race for the leadership of Britain's shattered opposition party, the Conservatives.

Former finance minister Kenneth Clarke became the fifth contender in the race with a call for a more "balanced tone" on Europe from the largely Eurosceptic party.

He said he would scrap the EU policies on which the Conservatives fought the last election.

He would also embrace both enlargement of the union and the European rapid reaction force.

Clarke was Chancellor of the Exchequer under ex-Conservative Prime Minister John Major. He was also Health Secretary, Education Secretary and Home Secretary.

He said he was the best candidate to win back the voters lost to Labour in the recent election, which he called "the most humiliating defeat in Conservative history."

He argued for replacing the party's official "keep the pound" policy with a policy of freedom of speech on the subject of Britain's currency.

"We must return the party to a more balanced position on Europe that can sensibly embrace a broad range of views," the 60-year-old Clarke told a news conference in central London.

"A balanced tone on Europe will free us to address in depth the domestic economic and social agenda which we neglected throughout the last Parliament."

His entry in the contest further complicated the picture for front-runner Michael Portillo.

But Portillo remained the bookies' favourite to replace William Hague, who stepped down on June 8 after a crushing election defeat by the ruling Labour Party.

Clarke had unsuccessfully fought Hague for the leadership following the Conservatives' first election defeat after 18 years in power in 1997. In addition to Clarke and Portillo, the other candidates are former party chairman Michael Ancram, defence spokesman Iain Duncan-Smith and senior parliamentarian David Davis.

Portillo claims the support of two-thirds of the Conservatives' "shadow" cabinet and many of the party's MPs.

But Clarke, who has held four top ministerial positions including finance minister, believes he has strong backing among the wider party membership.

Under the party's leadership election rules, the final choice lies with the grass-roots membership. A vote among MPs will narrow the field of candidates to two and those names will be put to a ballot of the party's 300,000 members.

The new leader is not expected to be chosen before September. Opinion polls show up to 70 percent of Britons oppose euro entry but show a similar amount expect to be using euros within 10 years regardless.