Tories Elect New Leader Major’s Successor, 36, Opposes Single European Currency

Britain’s Conservative Party, divided as always, chose a youthful and relatively unknown former cabinet member Thursday to replace defeated Prime Minister John Major as party leader.

William Hague’s election by Conservative members of Parliament followed a bitter contest centering on Europe, the same issue that has split the party for years. He was helped by the intervention of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who shares his opposition to British participation in the single currency planned for the European Union starting in 1999.

After three ballots, Hague defeated Kenneth Clarke, the archenemy of the party’s “Euro-skeptics” but favored by party activists as a heavy hitter who could take on the Labor Party’s Prime Minister Tony Blair. Clarke was chancellor of the exchequer until Labor’s landslide defeat of the Tories in the May 1 general election.

The vote Thursday was 92 to 70, with some members of Parliament voting for Hague in order to take a stand on Europe despite their concerns about his inexperience.

Hague said his mission was to “heal the party,” though during his campaign for the leadership he drew criticism by vowing to exclude from his opposition “shadow cabinet” anyone who did not accept his views on the European single currency.

Hague, 36, is the youngest Tory leader in 200 years. He served in Major’s cabinet as Welsh secretary, in charge of the administration of Wales. Blair, 44, is the youngest prime minister of the century.

Hague first attracted attention as a 16-year-old schoolboy delivering a Thatcherite speech at a 1977 Conservative Party conference.