Napier, MSCNewsWire, Thursday 7 July 2016 - Lord Digby Jones who was Britain’s Minister of State for Trade & Investment delivered eight years ago the most impassioned pro-EU address ever heard in Wellington. “My dear friends,” he characteristically began “it must be cherished, and it must be supported........Britain must be part of it.”

Lord Digby Jones was appointed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2007 to take the Labour government’s trade message to the world. At this time Britain was positioning itself as the Commonwealth’s bridge to the EU.

Fast forward to Brexit and its aftermath. Lord Digby Jones now explains that “the world changed. But the EU didn’t.”

Proclaiming this as the Asian “century” he said that the EU in fact acted as a protectionist bloc against free trade.

He invoked Africa, destination of vast amounts of UK foreign aid and yet which was constantly being shut out of Europe because of the EU’s protectionism.

He said that his experience as trade envoy brought home to him what he saw as the true French priority of ensuring that its farmers, in a state of constant protest, did not drive their cattle down the Champs Elysee.

Cross-bencher Lord Digby Jones is a former director general of the Confederation of British Industry. He is from a working class background.

He has described protectionism as a “scourge which may well find short term popularity but inhibits growth, reduces wealth and oppresses the weak”.

Lord Digby Jones, he is always thus described, now see the single market of the EU as having the opposite effect of the one intended in that it is part of the protectionist problem instead of being a solution to it.

In a public statement he said that Brexit occurred when “the ordinary Brit” examined what he referred to as ” the “Global Establishment Elite.”

He included in this establishment politics, business, trades unions and the media. Having looked this coterie “squarely in the face” Lord Digby Jones said that his “ordinary Brit” declared "my democratic freedom is not for sale.".

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