UK could become a ‘failed state’ says Gordon Brown

The UK could become a “failed state” according to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

He says it needs fundamental reform, because many people have lost faith in the way the country is governed by, and in the interests of, a London-centric elite.

It is understood that Mr Brown, who has been tasked by Labour’s Westminster leader Keir Starmer to look at how more power could be devolved to the nations and regions of the UK, recently compared plans to save the union with Tory Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove.

The former New Labour PM recently came under fire for comparing supporters of independence in Wales and Scotland to Donald Trump, and was described as “disingenuous” by grassroots pro-independence group YesCymru.

‘Failed state’ 

Mr Brown, who believes Brexit and the Covid-19 crisis have weakened the UK, wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “I believe the choice is now between a reformed state and a failed state,”

“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.

“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.”