Britain has become a picture of division, intolerance and introversion, Gordon Brown has said.
Writing in The Observer the former Prime Minister said that three weeks into Boris Johnson’s premiership, “English nationalism is on the rise, the Conservative and Unionist party has been reincarnated as the Conservative and Brexit party (and) unionism appears to be sleepwalking into oblivion”.
He added that the UK has sacrificed common sense to pursue a dogmatic abandonment of its own best interests.
Mr Brown said nationalism is pulling the UK apart, driving it towards “an unprecedented economic calamity precipitated by a no-deal exit from the EU”.
He also blasted the SNP for pursuing a second referendum on independence, saying it is peddling what it claims is a progressive, pro-European Scottish nationalism while ignoring what he says are the hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk if Scotland leaves the UK.
He concluded that the ideals of an inclusive outward-looking Britishness “could not survive the divisiveness and chaos of a no-deal Brexit”.
To prevent the rise of dysfunctional nationalism, Mr Brown said, “the first step is to stop no deal in its tracks”.