Critical: Ian Davidson

Backbenchers have today warned Tony Blair that a "doctrinaire, incestuous and inward-looking" government risks losing Labour voters as a result of its enthusiasm for the euro.

Over 30 MPs and peers, including former chancellor Lord Healey and former Downing Street policy adviser, John Cruddas, added their backing to Labour Against The Euro (LATE).

The new group's chairman, Ian Davidson, told ePolitix that the single currency is set to join a range of issues causing backbench "anxiety and concern".

"On the backbenches there are a whole number of issues causing anxiety and concern. People feel they are not having their views listened to and that the government is operating in a parallel universe where they are just speaking to their own selves, their own advisers, spinning things out to the media and then reading their own spin and believing it," he said.

He warned that the party was becoming "incestuous and inward-looking". "[The euro], Iraq, public spending, Blair's links with Berlusconi and Aznar, all these things are causing Labour members a considerable degree of concern," he told this website.

An ICM poll commissioned by the MPs finds that only one in five per cent of Labour voters support what many believe is the prime minister's mission to take the euro-plunge in this parliament.

Davidson believes the chancellor, Gordon Brown, is coming under pressure from Downing Street to downgrade the Treasury's five economic tests.

He said that senior Labour figures, including Charles Clarke and Peter Hain, were presenting the view that "if you're against the euro you're anti-European".

"There have been a number of comments like that saying it should just be an economic issue, the political issues have got to be taken into account and that is clearly a means of watering down the economic issues in order to raise the political," he said.

"New Labour has always been pretty strong on saying they don't want to take things on a doctrinaire or dogmatic basis, they want to go on the basis of what works. It is quite clear that those pressing us to join the euro are doing it for doctrinaire grounds."

Highlighting survey results which reveal 55 per cent of Labour voters to be in favour of the "wait and see" option and opposed to fighting a referendum in this parliament, Davidson believes euro dogma is damaging his party.

The ICM poll finds that the euro ranked bottom (three per cent) of a list of 11 priorities, topped by "delivery" objectives on the NHS (88 per cent), education (61 per cent) and crime (41 per cent).

"We ought to be spending money on public services rather than allowing the European Central bank to force us into expenditure cuts by limiting what we can spend", warns Davidson.

LATE's polling suggests that 26 per cent of Labour voters will switch allegiance at the next election if the government campaigns for the euro, with a third of working class supporters signalling their opposition.

Davidson is concerned that the push to the single currency will see "the party hollowing out as people drift away".

"We're no longer talking about creating a party of a million members and now just simply trying to hold on to what we have got," cautioned the Glasgow MP.