A MAN who tried to get an injunction to stop Gordon Brown selling the nation’s gold reserves at rock bottom prices is standing for election in Southampton as an independent.

Jeweller Kim Rose, 53, is appealing for voters to dump Mr Brown’s Labour Government for costing the economy an estimated £7bn by sanctioning as Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite city warnings, the sale of 395 tonnes of the nation’s gold.

The price of gold has more than quadrupled since the sales between 1999 and 2002.

Mr Rose attempted to block the sale in the High Court but said his effort collapsed due to lacking of funding support from the UK Independence Party, the party of which he was a member at the time.

He previously stood a candidate for the Socialist Labour Party, launched by former mine workers’ leader Arthur Scargill.

Mr Rose, who has run Eclipse Jewellers in Hanover Buildings for the past 22 years, is standing as an independent against Labour Cabinet minister John Denham for the Southampton Itchen seat.

The married father-of-four said: “Gordon Brown decided to sell the gold at the lowest prices for 20 years and he carried on selling when the prices were going down.

“If he had kept hold of the reverses we would be £7bn better off now. You could do a lot with that sort of money.

“With decision making like that I wouldn’t let I wouldn’t let him anywhere near my finances, let alone run the country.”

Southampton-born Mr Rose said he opposed fluoridation of the city’s water supplies with “toxic waste”, would work to stamp out high interest rate loan sharks and get residents into credit unions, and push for new inner city schools. He also wants to get the UK out of Europe.

Figures released by the Treasury show that the total proceeds from the gold sales were around $3.5bn. If the gold was sold today it would raise around $14.6bn.

The difference – $11.1bn – would be worth £7.2bn.