FOREIGN Secretary Jack Straw has rebuked Tory leader and Kent MP Michael Howard for suggesting his party would support more fuel protests, provided they were peaceful and lawful.

Mr Straw spoke out during an election campaign visit to Kent and claimed that the Conservatives had presided over “higher and faster” fuel price rises when they were last in office.

Speaking on a visit to Deal, Mr Straw said: “My view is that his comments show the vacuity of Conservative policy. World oil prices have risen for reasons people understand and what Gordon Brown is doing is talking with OPEC to get an increase in oil production. That is a far more effective way of dealing with the matter.”

The Foreign Secretary conceded the forthcoming European elections represented a challenge to Labour but denied that voters were likely to use the poll to voice their dissent over the Iraq war.

“Some people will vote on Iraq and some won’t. People are generally positive about the record of the Labour government and derisory about the Conservatives.”

Recent polls have suggested Labour’s share of the vote could be just 27 per cent. That would be enough to save the two MEPs who represent Kent in the south east region, Peter Skinner and Mark Watts.

Mr Straw engaged in some old-style hustings when he addressed a largely sympathetic audience from a soap box in Deal High Street.

He denied the European Union was “taking away national pride” and berated the Tory leader for facing in two different directions.

“Whatever else you say about UKIP, at least they have a clear position - they want to get out of Europe. Michael Howard has two positions - he wants to be in and out.”

But the Foreign Secretary was later challenged by a group of teenage schoolgirls visiting the area from north London.

They pressed him over the government’s decision to go to war and tackled him over the coalition’s failure to find any weapons of mass destruction.