THE BRITISH Prime Minister, Mr John Major, is facing potentially the most damaging cabinet split to date over Europe after two of his most senior colleagues publicly locked horns over Britain's future in the EU.
The Chancellor, Mr Kenneth Clarke, and Home Secretary Michael Howard effectively ended the truce on Europe among ministers yesterday as they delivered sharply contrasting visions of EU policy.
While Mr Clarke, the Cabinet's leading Europhile, emphasised the need to work "constructively" within the EU, Mr Howard raised the prospect of Britain clawing back powers from Brussels and standing apart while other countries moved towards closer economic and political union.
The public dispute between two cabinet heavyweights took the internecine warfare raging in the Tory party right into the heart of Mr Major's government.
It also put paid to any lingering hopes in the Tory high command of putting a lid on a dispute that has the potential to tear the party to pieces.
In a speech to students at Nottingham Trent University, the Chancellor bluntly declared that "Europhobia" could have no place in Conservative thinking.
"Like it or not, a successful relationship with Europe is vital to our future. We need as a nation to accept that we are in the EU for good and then to work constructively to shape it for the best," he said.
"The European option is not an alternative to national prosperity and political success. It is a vehicle towards prosperity and success, because outside Europe our economic weight and political voice would be much diminished.
"We have greater ambitions for our nation than to be just a Switzerland with nuclear weapons, stranded on the sidelines of world politics."
In contrast to Mr Clarke's unconditional support for Britain's EU membership, Mr Howard said only that the reasons for staying in "remain strong".
The Home Secretary revived the concept of "variable geometry", with the various member states accepting only those elements of European policy they agreed with. He outlined an "off the peg" Europe, with members being able to stand aside if a "small group of countries" decide to pursue deeper economic and political union.
"It could allow those countries which wish to amalgamate their institutions to do so, while permitting other states for example to remain within a single market but outside political union," he said.
"This may indeed mean that some states would be able to repatriate powers which are currently exercised by Brussels.
"It will ensure that we `made to measure' Europe in which the institutional arrangements comfortably fit national interests, not an `off the peg' standard size Europe, ill fitting and splitting at the seams," added the Home Secretary.
Although both men were careful not to cut across agreed Government policy, their blueprints' for the future direction of policy could hardly have been more different.
Later a leading Eurosceptic Tory MP, Sir Teddy Taylor, said he endorsed Mr Howard's sentiments on the repatriation of power and deplored the "obsessive Euro enthusiasm" displayed by Mr Clarke.
"I hope that this further sign of the fundamental divide on Europolicy will persuade the party leadership that a Conservative government, just like any future Labour government, will tear itself apart on the issue unless we agree to allow the people to express their sentiments in a referendum," Sir Teddy said.
"We are very near the edge of total Euro integration, with only border controls and the economy still to go," he said.
. The European Human Rights Commission decided yesterday to take up a complaint that British police had failed to protect the life of a man who was murdered by his son's jealous teacher.
The complaint was brought by Ms Mulkiye Osman after teacher Paul Paget Lewis shot her husband, Ali Osman, dead and wounded her then 14 year old son, Ahmet Osman, in 1987.
Paget Lewis had become jealous of Ahmet's friendship with another boy at their school in the London suburb of Hackney.
After a series of attacks on the Osmans' home which were reported to police over several months, Paget Lewis shot the two and went on to kill the son of the school's deputy headmaster.
Mulkiye and Ahmet Osman turned to the European Commission of Human Rights after British courts struck out their claim against police for alleged negligence.
The Commission will now try to secure a friendly settlement. Failing this, it will either refer the case to the European Court of Human Rights or report to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.