LABOUR will be fighting the General Election campaign in Colchester from the left – with its candidate opposed to the proposed European Constitution, the single currency, and the war in Iraq.

By Graham Dines

LABOUR will be fighting the General Election campaign in Colchester from the left – with its candidate opposed to the proposed European Constitution, the single currency, and the war in Iraq.

Laura Bruni is a member of Labour Against a Federal Super State, the new lobby group formed by a number of MPs who will campaign against further European integration in future referendums on Europe.

"The Constitution is a series of complex rules – the EU should not interfere in matters which are properly the preserve of national parliaments. I believe the people of Colchester will be suspicious and need a lot of convincing it is a good idea."

Laura was one of Labour's campaigners against the Iraq war. "In my view there are three reasons for military action – if a country is directly attacked or under explicit threat of attack, if it has a treaty with another country promising intervention eg Poland in 1939, or to avert an immediate humanitarian crisis eg as in Kosovo.

"I did not find the arguments pre-war of Saddam's arsenal being a direct threat convincing and, as we now know, weapons of mass destruction did not exist."

Laura goes to Colchester having work in Parliament for nine years. Her father's career in the armed forces an RAF pilot meant the family moved around a great deal, but when she was 11, they settled at Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire. She went to London University, obtaining a degree in history and a PhD in Romanian history.

After joining Index on Censorship magazine as an area specialist in South East Europe, she furthered her interest in politics by working for the late Bernie Grant, Labour MP for Tottenham, between 1995 and 1997.

Since May 1997, Laura has been Parliamentary Assistant to John Cryer, the Labour MP for Hornchurch.

Laura, who is divorced, has been active in the Labour Party since 1986. Her grandparents on her father's side were lifelong Labour Party supporters and her grandfather was a staunch trade unionist. She is a member of the Transport and General Workers Union, the GMB, Amnesty International, the London Wildlife Trust.