THANK you for printing (LET, March 5) part of my press release and part of the subsequent interview with your reporter.

Let me make my own future political intentions clear. The only thing I rule out is standing in the 1999 Euro-elections.

Proportional Representation will fundamentally change British politics, inevitably leading to the break-up of the present broad-based major parties, Tory and Labour.

Indeed, the Euro-elections will see pro-Europe Tories standing as a separate political entity.

I certainly have no present intention of standing as anything other than "Labour" - it is my party as much as it is Blair's. But should the Blairites ever have the courage of their own sound-bites and actually stand as "New Labour" or a blander title - finally acknowledging their rejection of Labour's proud tradition - then that would entirely change the picture.

In those circumstances, I and others would ensure that voters did have a real choice on the ballot paper of voting for candidates committed to the policies best expressed in the Labour Party Manifesto of 1983 as wanting "a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance in wealth and power in favour of working people and their families."

That is the promise on which Tony Blair was elected to Parliament.

He has shifted his position completely. I and thousands of Labour Party members and voters have not.

MICHAEL HINDLEY MEP, Lancashire South.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.