'Sun' could alter stance on euro

THE SUN could back British entry into European Monetary Union if "it works", David Yelland, the newspaper's editor, acknowledged yesterday.

In an interview with The Independent, Mr Yelland said there was an "outside chance" that the ferociously anti-EMU paper could change its stance on monetary union in what he regarded as the highly unlikely event of the euro succeeding.

Asked if the paper would continue its opposition to EMU up to and including a referendum on the issue, Mr Yelland said: "Yes. Unless it works. We've said this all the way through. If the rest of Europe goes into the euro and it works brilliantly, and the level at which [Gordon] Brown and [Tony] Blair want to go in seems right, and the entire country swings behind it, and various other political factors come into place there's an outside chance. But I wouldn't think that's very likely."

He stressed that he believed it was only a "small possibility" and "very, very unlikely to happen".

Mr Yelland said that he personally found the political consequences of a single currency "abhorrent" and that the current discussion would prove to be irrelevant "because the thing won't work and we won't go in anyway".

He made it clear that any decision to change would involve Rupert Murdoch, the newspaper's proprietor. He indicated that it would take until the "first or second year" of a second Blair term before it was clear if it had worked - which is "years and years away".