Global Britain

Global Britain is a Euro-Sceptic think tank that was founded in 1997 by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Lord Harris of High Cross (who died in 2006).

Personnel

Lord Harris of High Cross gained a first in economics at Cambridge and lectured in political economy at the University of St Andrews from 1949 to 1956. He was appointed General Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) on its foundation by Anthony Fisher in 1956. Subsequently, he became the IEA’s Chairman in 1987 and its Founder-President in 1990. He was a director of Times Newspaper Holdings Ltd between 1988 and 2001. Prime Minister Thatcher made him a Life Peer in 1979 in her first honours list; he sat as a cross-bencher until his death in 2006. The IEA under Ralph’s direction has had an enormous influence on public policy and on the views of leading politicians, notably Keith Joseph, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

• Lord Pearson of Rannoch spent his business career as an international insurance broker. Between 1983 and 1992 he represented UK commerce on the country's largest degree-awarding body, the Council for National Academic Awards. In 1984 he founded the Rannoch Charitable Trust, which has funded, inter alia, refugees from Communism in Europe, research for improvement in British state education and for environmental improvement of the Scottish Highlands. He was made a Life Peer in 1990 by Prime Minister Thatcher, and sat on the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities between 1992 and 1996. A leading exponent of the case for the UK to withdraw from the EU, he left the Conservative Party in 2007 to join the United Kingdom Independence Party.

• Lord Stoddart of Swindon worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board between 1951 and 1972. He joined the Labour Party in 1947 and served on the Reading County Borough Council between 1954 and 1972, successively as Chairman of the Housing, Transport and Finance Committees and, between 1967 and 1972, as Leader of the Council. He was MP for Swindon between 1970 and 1983, serving as PPS to the Minister for Housing and Construction in 1974/5 and Assistant Government Whip in 1975. He became a Life Peer in 1983, serving as Opposition Spokesman on energy until 1988. He was Chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain from 1985 to 2008. He now sits in the House of Lords as Independent Labour.

• Lord Willoughby de Broke was Chairman of St Martins Magazines plc 1992-2008, President, Heart of England Tourist Board 1996-2005, Patron, Warwickshire Association of Boys’ Clubs 1991-2004, and Member of the Anglo-Hong Kong Trust 1996-2006. He was a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities 1996-2001. He was elected to the House of Lords in 1999. He left the Conservative Party in 2007 to join the United Kingdom Independence Party.

Global Britain's Director, since 1999, is Ian Milne. He is chairman of companies involved in publishing and book distribution. He graduated in engineering from Cambridge University and has a forty-year career in industry and merchant banking in the UK, France and Belgium. He was the founder-editor (in 1993) of The European Journal, and the founder (in 1995) and first editor of eurofacts. His most recent publications, A Cost Too Far? (Civitas, July 2004), an analysis of the net economic costs and benefits for the UK of EU membership, and Backing the Wrong Horse (Centre for Policy Studies, December 2004), a review of the UK's trading arrangements and options for the future, can be viewed here at the "Publications by Global Britain authors" page. Global Britain's Manager, since 1999, is Maxine Thomas (née Nesbitt).