UK former PM Gordon Brown says Britain cannot survive no-deal Brexit

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown has warned that a "tolerant, inclusive and outward-looking" Britain "could not survive" a no-deal Brexit and that the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is "sleepwalking into oblivion".

In an opinion column for The Observer newspaper on Sunday, the former Labour leader claimed "nationalism is now driving British politics" and that the nation is facing "not only our most serious constitutional crisis since the 17th century but an unprecedented economic calamity precipitated by a no-deal exit from the EU".

To prevent the rise of dysfunctional nationalism, Brown said: "the first step is to stop no deal in its tracks".

The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union on June 23, 2016, and was due to leave on March 29, 2019, following two years of negotiations.

Former prime minister Theresa May failed three times to get the deal she reached with Brussels passed by Parliament. This prompted her resignation as prime minister and Brexit being pushed back to Oct 31.

New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK will leave the EU on the current deadline. He wants to negotiate a new Brexit deal, but says he is prepared to leave without a deal if necessary.

Brown, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2010, attacked Johnson's strategy, saying: "his sound bites, pledging token sums for the NHS (health service) and 20,000 more police on the street at some future date, cannot disguise a government driven not by the national interest but by a destructive, populist, nationalist ideology.

"With Scottish nationalists pushing a more extreme form of separation and Northern Ireland's unionists becoming, paradoxically, Northern Irish nationalists - digging in, even if it means, against all economic logic, a hard border with the Irish Republic - we are, at best, only a precariously united kingdom," he said.

The former PM pointed out that only 30 percent of British Conservatives (and only 14 percent of Brexit party voters) would oppose Brexit if it meant the breakup of the union, while 56 percent of Conservatives (and 78 percent of Brexit party voters) - in total 70 percent of "leave" voters - would go ahead regardless, even if the union collapsed.

He highlighted that recent polling shows a majority of Scots support Scottish independence. In a new Hope Not Hate poll, many more - 60 percent - agree a no-deal Brexit would accelerate the demand for independence. Only 15 percent disagreed.

"What is most worrying is not just that so many think the union will end but how at least for now so few appear to care," he said.

Brown, who is Scottish, also criticized Labour's John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, who he said "fell into the nationalist trap" over comments made earlier this week indicating that a future Labour government would not prevent a second Scottish independence referendum.

Brown also blasted the Scottish National Party, saying it is peddling a progressive, pro-European Scottish nationalism while ignoring, he believes, that hundreds of thousands of jobs would be at risk if Scotland leaves the UK.

jonathan@mail.chinadailyuk.com

(China Daily 08/13/2019 page12)