Gordon Brown rules out early euro entry in 2003

Mr Brown made a statement to the British parliament on 9th June 2003. He said that only one of his five tests had been passed. Convergence of the UK economy with the economies in Euroland had not been achieved.

In fact, the UK economy was experiencing some stumbling economic growth in 2003 while Euroland was experiencing little or no growth. Huge amounts of variable interest housing debt has beeen added in the UK in recent years implying that the UK economy is even further away from convergence than it was in earlier years.

The Treasury gave warnings of possible new taxes, including capital gains on residential property, and the return of boom-and-bust in the housing market if Britain signed up without first making reforms. But Mr Brown boosted the pro-euro camp with an action plan to prepare the housing and labour markets for British membership and gave them strong hope that Mr Brown and Tony Blair would launch a referendum campaign early in the next parliament.