IT TOOK fish to bring to the surface at last the least-debated - or, some would say, most-avoided - election issue...Europe.

But, as Britain today battled to block a move by EU fisheries chiefs to cut back on catch sizes in order to protect threatened stocks, playing the struggling UK fishermen's friends, both John Major and Tony Blair were putting a toe in the Euro-sceptic water in the evident belief there are votes in it.

And even the pro-Europe Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown, was taking something of a Britain-first stance, saying he would scrap the EU common fisheries policy and replace it with a regional administration.

But does this signal something else - that the leaders of the two main parties are becoming more alert to the Euro-sceptic undertow in the election campaign?

True, both Mr Major and Mr Blair were playing the sceptic card on the single issue of fish, with each of them threatening to block the updated version of the Maastricht Treaty at the EU summit in Amsterdam in June if action is not taken to stop foreign trawlers plundering UK fishing grounds.

But if there was an implied policy shift, Europe-wise in general, in this, perhaps the most marked was the promise of Tony Blair to use the British veto over Maastricht Two.

For he had previously said that Labour will lead and present a positive front in Europe. Now, over fish at least, he promises a negative, obstructionist stance. Where, then, does that outlook lead to when the far more fundamental sovereignty issue of European monetary integration arises?

For the spectre of interest rates in the UK being fixed in Frankfurt, of Brussels imposing a blanket European VAT and income tax system on Britain and even of the Bank of England's gold reserves being taken abroad to underpin the a single currency are all issues that beg the question of whether, as Prime Minister, Tony Blair or John Major would wield a veto over them in the same way that they suggest they would over the rights of quota-hopping Spanish boats to trawl for UK cod.

Thus far, the Euro seems to have had a low priority in the voters' concerns, despite the stimulus of the Referendum Party's emergence in bringing the issue of Europe and UK sovereignty more to the fore.

And, yes, there are policies on the part of the two main parties. The Tories' official line is "wait and see" amid doubt that the single currency will go ahead on schedule. And, like them, Labour is promising a referendum on the Euro,

But - as John Major well knows, with more than 70 Conservative candidates rebelling against the official line and declaring that they are not prepared to surrender the pound and, no doubt, many in Labour silently believing the same - there are many voters who would want the two main parties to go further than this.

Does then the waving today of the fish war veto signal that, if an election debate is at last forced on the issue of the single currency, Mr Blair and Mr Major are prepared to go deeper into the Euro-sceptic water?

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