A HEREFORD businessman will be pivotal in trying to stop the euro coming to Britain.

Ian Brown has been recruited to the West Midlands business council of the "no" campaign, the leading campaign to try and stop the introduction of the euro to the UK.

Mr Brown is chairman and managing director of antiques dealers I & JL Brown and believes joining the single currency would be a blow to British businesses.

He will sit on the business council with other high-profile business people including Tim Watts, chairman of Pertemps, Jenny Nelder, Midlands chairman of the Institute of Directors, and John Pilling, managing director of Kidderminster carpet manufacturer Brintons.

"I cannot see any advantages to joining the single currency," said Mr Brown.

"I am not against membership of the EU but I do believe that Britain's economy will be stronger if we retain the pound.

"In the eurozone, interest rates are set in Frankfurt, and that means if we joined the euro we'd have the wrong interest rate for much of the time.

"It would be like ERM 10 years ago when 100,000 businesses went bankrupt, only this time we couldn't get out."

I & JL Brown has showrooms in Hereford and London supplying English country and French provincial antique furniture. The company's specialist stock and reproduction items are shipped all over the world.