UK MEP CAUGHT WITH DRUGS WITHDRAWS FROM ELECTION

LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - A senior Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
from Britain's Conservative party withdrew from this year's European
parliament elections on Sunday after cannabis and a gay sex video were
found in his suitcase.

Tom Spencer, chairman of the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee,
released a statement saying he would not be standing for the elections in
June, just hours after the party had suspended him from its Strasbourg group.

Spencer had paid an on-the-spot fine of 550 pounds ($905) to customs
authorities after his suitcase was opened at London's Heathrow Airport when
he returned from France on Tuesday.

"I have concluded it is in the best interests of all concerned that I
should withdraw from the party's list for the next European elections,"
Spencer said in a statement issued on Sunday evening.

Conservative Party chairman Michael Ancram said he welcomed Spencer's
decision, adding, "I hope he may now be given the space to rebuild his life."

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday newspaper, Spencer, 50,
acknowledged he was a homosexual despite a 19-year marriage to his wife Liz.

He said his wife, who has two teenage daughters by Spencer as well as one
from a previous marriage, had turned a blind eye to a long-standing
friendship with a man.

"We have always loved each other and we are sticking together as a family,"
the couple said in a joint statement to the Mail.

Spencer, whose attitude to the European Union is markedly more positive
than that of his sceptical party, has been a member of the Strasbourg
parliament since 1979, representing the prosperous county of Surrey just
south of London.

Britain is switching to a proportional representation system to elect its
MEPs when polling takes place on June 10. Before the events that led to his
withdrawal, Spencer had been placed number two on the list of Conservative
candidates for southeast England, a position which would have almost
guaranteed his re-election.

The Mail and other newspapers reported that as well as the explicit gay sex
video and two cannabis joints, homosexual magazines sold legally in France
had been found in his suitcase.

They said it had been opened after it was discovered unattended by airport
security officers following a baggage mix-up on a flight from Strasbourg.

The news came at the end of a bleak month for the Conservatives.

On January 19, two other Conservative MEPs, John Stevens and Brendan
Donnelly, resigned from the party over its opposition to Britain adopting
the European single currency. Spencer's troubles have reduced its ranks at
Strasbourg to 14.

Last week, an opinion poll in the Times newspaper put support for the
Conservatives at just 24 percent, seven points below their showing at the
1997 general election when they suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands
of the Labour Party.