LONDON Europe was the one issue Tony Blair did not want to dominate British domestic politics in the last full year before he calls a general election.

The British economy has steamed steadily ahead, inflation is under control and unemployment is lower than it has been in decades. The Labour Party has a solid parliamentary majority, and Blair has better control of his party than any other Labour leader has achieved in decades.

It was on this basis that the prime minister wanted to fight the election, which is expected in May next year. But Europe and Britain's place in it have dominated the debate at Westminster, in the media, and -- to Blair's evident discomfit -- within his own cabinet.

The prime minister came back from the European Union Summit in Nice at the end of the year, firmly stating that Britain had fought its corner and kept its veto rights in the key areas of tax and social security, but the many critics of Europe were disbelieving.

According to their views -- vocally expressed by the opposition Conservative Party and much of the press -- a "European superstate" is emerging that will swamp Britain and all it stands for.

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, a devout Euro-sceptic, summed up their attitudes when she referred proudly to the role of "the English-speaking peoples" in defeating fascism in the 1940s and warned against surrendering British independence to the French and the Germans.

Much of the debate is carried on at the level of GUT appeal to Britishness which, when all is said and done, is held up to be superior to the way the "Continentals" do things.

Plans to set up a European Rapid Reaction Force of 60,000 troops that could be deployed quickly and independently of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization generated a political furor in November.

The plans had long been under discussion and Blair assumed that proceeding with them would be uncontroversial, but a furious storm broke in Britain, in contrast with the rest of the EU where the new move passed virtually without comment.

Alarmed by French demands that the force's command structures be independent of NATO, Conservative critics predicted Britain's "special relationship" with the U.S. would be destroyed.

The incorporation in October of the convention on human rights into British law has also enraged Conservative forces, who fear the centuries old legal structures of the United Kingdom will be undermined.

Some British rulings have been overturned in Strasbourg, and lawyers have on occasion warned they will challenge certain laws. Nevertheless, the upheaval predicted has failed to materialize.

But even more than the issues of cultural, political, legal and military independence from the EU the euro dominated debate. Invariably referred to as "ailing" or "faltering" or even doomed", the single European currency and whether Britain should adopt it were at the core of domestic politics.

Popular opinion opposed to the euro rose and rose as the year went on, reaching 70 per cent by the close of the year, with the debate still raging and Labour more uncomfortable with the issue than ever.

Within the cabinet, sentiment was reported to range from the strongly pro-euro Peter Mandelson, secretary for Northern Ireland, to the anti-euro group led by Home Secretary Jack Straw, discreetly supported by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

Nevertheless, political mistakes by the opposition Conservative Party have handed Labour a solid lead in the polls, despite disquiet among the electorate over its policies on Europe in general and the euro in particular.

And Blair is thought certain to call the election in the spring, confident he can win again, and secure the full two terms for Labour that have eluded his predecessors. (DPA)