Monday, 29th September 2008

The Conservatives have been accused of hypocrisy over post office closures by UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP.

He was responding to a promise by shadow business secretary Alan Duncan to suspend post office closures, which drew cheers at the Tory conference in Birmingham.

"That is pretty rich coming from a party whose MEPs routinely vote in the European Parliament for the sort of EU regulations that have forced the government to close thousands of post offices," said Mr Farage.

"Everyone knows that the the Royal Mail monopoly was ordered to be broken up by Brussels and it is Brussels that has told the government that they can't give subsidies to the existing network. And did the Tories in the European Parliament do anything to stop this? No, they did not. They went along with it, as they usually do with what Brussels wants.

"This is rank hypocrisy. The Tories say one thing to their constituents and something entirely different when they are helping to prop up the EU machine."

UKIP is campaigning all over the country to prevent the closure of 2,500 post offices under the EU-inspired programme announced by the government.

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