British opposition members of parliament urged the UK government on Tuesday to make Burma a higher priority in foreign policy.

The plea was made at a special session attended by members of the main opposition Conservative Party and a government minister, held in parliament’s Westminster Hall.

The session was called by Conservative Party MP Stephen Crabb, who demanded “greater engagement” in the Burma question by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair as well as a more proactive approach on Burma by the UK within the European Union and UN.

“The European Union and others in the international community have been, in my view, far too timid in the language they have been willing to use,” said Crabb.

Citing atrocities by the regime in Karen State, the continued use of child soldiers and the plight of the Burmese opposition and political prisoners, Crabb joined other MPs in calling for a review of Britain’s investment practices in Burma. Recent Burmese government figures show that the UK is the second largest investor in the country, despite EU restrictions on investment in Burma. The British government says the data is flawed, not least because it includes investments that have already been withdrawn.

Special interest groups and a number of British MPs have claimed that multinational companies are pouring money into Burma through UK overseas territories, including Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands.

“It seems to me that propping up the regime through trade is a key area where it has benefited and one that we can do something about,” said Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Conservative MP.

In response, the Minister for Europe, Geoffrey Hoon, said Britain had “a long-standing policy of discouraging British firms from trading with or investing in Burma,” adding that there was “no evidence that large-scale investments are reaching Burma via British overseas territories-registered companies.” The British government had reviewed the situation and would do so again, he said.

A number of opposition MPs attacked the EU’s attitude on trade with the Burmese regime, singling out France in particular over the investment of energy company Total in the Yadana Gas pipeline. Conservative MP John Bercow asked whether the British government agreed that “the rest of the European Union should…name, shame, denounce and humiliate the French government for their outrageous collusion in the regime’s unethical practices?”

Requesting a stronger EU Common Position on Burma, Crabb noted that less than £4,000 (US $7,507) in assets belonging to the Burmese regime had been frozen as part of European sanctions.

There were also calls for Britain to increase efforts at the UN Security Council and to consider demanding that the Burmese government allow independent observers to monitor a referendum on a new constitution, the next step in the junta’s “Roadmap to Democracy” scheduled to take place after the conclusion of the ongoing National Convention. Crabb labeled the convention process a “sham” and a “desperate bid by a brutal military regime to rubber-stamp its own agenda and give itself a civilian face.”

Recalling British government efforts to call the junta to task for its behavior, Hoon noted that Mark Canning, the British ambassador to Burma, had on Tuesday expressed concern to Burmese Minister of Home Affairs Maung Oo over recent unspecified abuses by the regime.