Greece should not have joined euro, says former Shropshire MP

Former prime minister Tony Blair was said to have been in favour of joining, but was reportedly over-ruled by then chancellor Gordon Brown, who said Britain had not met the strict criteria required for membership of the eurozone.

"I think if we had joined, we could well be facing similar problems," says Christopher Gill, looking at the unfolding events in Greece.

"I remember when I was one of the few voices speaking against membership of the euro, and everybody was saying how many jobs would be lost and the factories that would close if we weren't part of it."

Mr Gill, who lives in Bridgnorth, was the Conservative MP for Ludlow between 1987 and 2001. Known as the Butcher of Ludlow because of his family's Wolverhampton-based meat business, he switched to Ukip in 2006.

"Greece should never have been allowed to join the eurozone in the first place, simply because they didn't fit the criteria the EU had established long ago," says Mr Gill.

"The same can possibly be said about Italy or other countries as well; they simply didn't meet the targets or levels of debt, the debt to GDP as a ratio as established by the EU. The rules were bent very severely to allow those countries to join, simply to promote the political programme.

"It's reprehensible that people like the Greeks are now suffering simply because the EU leaders at the time allowed them to join the euro."

Given Mr Gill's eurosceptic stance, it is perhaps little surprise that he thinks the best thing for Greece would be for it to leave the euro, and let it have its own currency.

"I don't agree with the principle of people washing their debts away in this way, but I don't see any real alternative," he says. "The rest of Europe either has to keep on shovelling more money into the euro to keep it afloat, or it has to give Greece a clean break and allow it to start all over again with a new currency with the power to set its own rates of interest.

"The rates of interest and valuation are a bit like the shock absorbers on a motor car. Without the shock absorbers you have a very bumpy ride."

Yet despite this week's no-vote on the bail-out, polls have consistently shown that the majority of people in Greece want to keep the euro as their currency.

"I really don't understand that," says Mr Gill. "Whether it's because they fear that if they leave the euro, or if they leave the EU, they will be at risk of threats from countries to the east, that's the only thing I can think of."

Perhaps surprisingly, given his political background, Mr Gill is sympathetic to the way Greece's far-left Syriza government, led by former Communist Alexi Tsipras, has handled the crisis.

"The Greek premier has said 'I'm going to let the people decide'," he says. "That represents a sea-change, for the last few years they have been having to dance to the Brussels tune. The people have said enough is enough, we now want to make our own decisions.

"I can see how the proponents of the European Union won't like that, they see populism as a dirty word, but if they are doing this because it is popular, isn't that what democracy is supposed to be about, going along with the majority?

"I think if I was living in Greece, I would have voted no."

Of course, the difficulty for Mr Tsipras is that while he has been elected on a ticket of ending austerity and standing up to the Europe's demands, he has also said he wishes to see Greece remain in the eurozone.

Mr Gill thinks he will have little prospect of achieving that end, although he says eurozone leaders will be desperate to keep Greece on board. He says if Greece manages to prosper outside the eurozone, it could lead to the collapse of the currency as other members head for the exit door.

However, while Mr Gill has sympathy for the way Mr Tsipras has taken on the European Union, he warns that the problem is not going to go away if he fails to address the issue of borrowing.

"The last thing Greece needs is a very left-wing, very socialist government which indulges in another round of public spending and more borrowing, more of the very policies which got it into the mess it is in in the first place."

And with the Greek economy standing on the precipice of an economic meltdown, which is sure to send shockwaves around Europe, are the conditions ripe for more extremist parties, both left and right, to fill the vacuum left by public disenchantment with the establishment parties? As well as Mr Tsipras's Syriza party, the economic woes have also seen the rise of the far-right Golden Dawn party.

"I don't know, you do wonder," he says. "I wonder if that is why people are afraid of leaving the EU, because they feel it will protect them from that."