TORY high command yesterday promised to fight ''tooth and nail'' to stop the new EU constitution being implemented.
It hopes to embarrass the government by organising a people's petition to parliament of millions of signatures from across the nation.
The promise to battle for a poll on the new European treaty came during a debate on international affairs, when there was a clear rise in the anti-Blair rhetoric ahead of the leader's speech today, when Iain Duncan Smith is expected to launch his most personal attack yet on the prime minister.
Michael Ancram, the shadow foreign secretary, yesterday set the tone by denouncing the ''stench of spin'' hanging around the government and by insisting there was now ''an endemic dishonesty'' in everything Mr Blair said and did.
On Europe, the party's deputy leader claimed the government had ''thrown in the towel'' over the negotiations as to what should be in the new document.
''We will fight this damaging constitution with everything we've got,'' declared the Scottish front bencher. ''For a start, the British people have the right to say yes or no in a referendum. Other EU countries are having referendums to decide. What is wrong with the British people that we cannot be trusted to decide?
''We will promote a petition to parliament requiring a referendum because even this prime minister cannot ignore forever the collective voice of the British people,'' he said.
The shadow secretary of state argued the Tories wanted a new Europe of democracies ''where power flows upwards from nation states and their peoples and not downwards from Brussels and its remote elites''.
Michael Howard, the shadow chancellor, promised yesterday that radical reform of public services and tax cuts will go hand in hand under a Conservative government, However, he did not disclose which taxes would be axed.
Mr Howard denounced the government for introducing 60 tax rises since coming to power, which meant Britons paid 50% more tax than when the Conservatives left office.
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