BBC: Brexit: Survival of UK in doubt, Gordon Brown warns

25 June 2019

The ex-prime minister said the United Kingdom risked "unravelling" due to Brexit and the "narrow nationalism" of the Conservative and SNP governments.

Gordon Brown has warned the future of the union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is "more at risk" than at any time in 300 years. [...]

In a speech in London, he urged the "patriotic majority" to speak up against their values being "hijacked". [...]

A no-deal exit, he argued, was an "act of economic self-harm" which Mr Johnson and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage were determined to make a "test of true patriotism".

Leaving without any mutually agreed basis for future co-operation would not only cause irreparable economic damage, Mr Brown said, but threaten the peace settlement in Northern Ireland and undermine the whole integrity of the union.

"Talking up no deal means renouncing the chance of a positive post-Brexit relationship with the continent and our major economic partners," he said.

"It is yet another example of an inward-looking, isolationist and dogmatic approach that has no economic logic and runs counter to our long-term national interest.

 

"And yet those who do not go down that road are accused of not being true patriots and of betraying Britain. Our patriotism has been hijacked by a narrow dogmatic nationalism." [...]

Full article on BBC


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