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UK could become 'a failed state' without reform, former PM Brown says

Published 25/01/2021, 06:53
Updated 25/01/2021, 07:05
© Reuters. Britain's former Prime Minister Gordon Brown speaks during a Christian Aid Week event in London

© Reuters. Britain's former Prime Minister Gordon Brown speaks during a Christian Aid Week event in London

LONDON (Reuters) - Unless the United Kingdom is fundamentally reformed it could swiftly become a failed state as many people have lost faith in the way the country is governed by, and in the interests of, a London-centric elite, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

"I believe the choice is now between a reformed state and a failed state," Brown wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "It is indeed Scotland where dissatisfaction is so deep that it threatens the end of the United Kingdom."

"'Whoever in London thought of that?' is a common refrain, reflecting the frustration of people in outlying communities who feel they are the forgotten men and women, virtually invisible to Whitehall," Brown, who served as Labour prime minister from 2007 to 2010, wrote.

The five-year Brexit crisis plus the COVID-19 crisis have weakened the bonds that bind England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland into a $3 trillion economy.

Brown said Prime Minister Boris Johnson should reform the way the United Kingdom is governed.

© Reuters. Britain's former Prime Minister Gordon Brown speaks during a Christian Aid Week event in London

"Battered by Covid-19, threatened by nationalism, and uncertain what the promise of a post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ adds up to, the United Kingdom must urgently rediscover what holds it together and sort out what is driving us apart," he said.

Latest comments

Brown failed in a relatively easy environment, he has no right to comment on anything really
Failed pm warns of failed state
How to make a situation worse. Brown is doing it again. Who plugged him in again?
Another load of tosh from the man who sold all the countries gold of 400 dollars an ounce lol
Yawnnn.
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