HAVING long revelled in John Major's discomfiture at the hands of Tory Euro-rebels, Tony Blair today gets a disconcerting glimpse of the future with him as Prime Minister - and hostage to a band of anti-Europeans on his back benches.

For, timed for today's EU summit in Turin, 50 Labour MPs - nearly a fifth of the party's strength - come out openly in opposition to a single European currency.

They say it would cause huge cuts in jobs and services in this country and, undemocratically, put bankers in control of Europe's economies.

At this stage, this rumbling on Labour's Left wing is somewhat academic.

For the party is not in power at Westminster, and the one that is has opted out from commitment to the nascent Euro.

Besides which, our EU partners, no matter how committed they may be on paper, are themselves either so divided on the principle of the single currency, or unable to meet the criteria for monetary union, that the way ahead may be yet see some countries in and others out of a one-money system. However, though moderniser Mr Blair may dismiss this challenge to official Labour policy on Europe's money - which is warm to the idea of a single currency but does not rule out a referendum - as another of "old" Labour's death rattles, he will have to take it more seriously.

The size alone of this revolt suggests that, in government, Labour would need a strong majority of mainly New Labour MPs to marginalise the anti-EU left wing.

Otherwise, Euro-sceptics could be as much a thorn in the side of Tony Blair as they have been for John Major.

All of which suggests that both main parties may yet have to commit themselves firmly to a referendum on the single currency issue.

That poll would have to be distinct from the question being embraced in their general election manifestos, since that would preclude the voters from making a precise choice.

For only a clear mandate from the British public for or against the Euro will safely allow the government of the day to proceed towards, or away from, a single currency and at the same time quieten the dissidents who might otherwise make their ability to govern so difficult.

But, for the present, the veneer of unity over Europe in New Labour, hitherto sustained by the focus being mainly on the more high-profile in-government Tories' Euro-split, has now cracked open wide.

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