FORMER Labour leader Neil Kinnock yesterday fired a broadside at the

Government's Europe policy as he prepared to take up his new job as a

Commissioner in Brussels.

Mr Kinnock, who becomes one of Britain's two permanent representatives

on the European Commission next month, accused Mr John Major of failing

to take up opportunities that could benefit the country.

However, he denied vehemently that he was ready to ''go native'' as he

went into his new job co-ordinating transport policy.

''Wherever you are going, you have to retain your sense of discernment

and I don't think you could do a job like being a Commissioner without

retaining that,'' he said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Mr Kinnock, 52, who will join his wife, Glenys, a Euro-MP, claimed

that damaging political rows in Britain would have little impact on his

standing at the EC.

''I don't think my position is undermined but I do think that

Britain's position is undermined by some of the failures to take

opportunities that really do exist in the relationship between the

countries that make up the Community,'' he said.

''When the British Government drags its feet on the development of the

social dimension of the single market, it does not just inflict

disadvantage on British working people but inflicts disadvantage on the

country generally.

''Britain is not taking the opportunity under the current Government

to seize the agenda and lead opinion in the EU in the way I think our

country could,'' he said.