By Aiyeku Timothy
A former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that the UK is at risk of becoming a failed state and breaking up unless there are deep reforms on the way the country is governed.
He affirmed that the Westminster government is out of touch and fundamental changes are needed.
“I believe the choice is now between a reformed state and a failed state,” Brown wrote in the Daily Telegraph. “It is indeed Scotland where dissatisfaction is so deep that it threatens the end of the United Kingdom.”
Brown, who was chancellor of the exchequer for 10 years from 1997 and became prime minister in 2007, said many Britons were disillusioned with the way the country was governed by and in the interests of a London-centric elite.
Speaking on Monday morning, he accused Boris Johnson and his government of being out of touch. He said: “I do think Boris Johnson has not quite understood how deep the resentment is, how the lack of trust is causing him a problem, a problem about his acceptability in different parts of the country.”
Gordon Brown warned that people in some parts are treated like “second class citizens” and said the COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the “massive inequalities” between the different parts of the union that need to be addressed.
“I want a reformed state, not a failed state,” Mr Brown said, explaining his call for reform.
He continued: “There is dissatisfaction, not just in Scotland, but right round the regions and in Wales and Northern Ireland.
“People don’t feel that over the virus, over the lockdown, over the quarantines, over the business support…people in the regions don’t feel they’re being properly consulted or listened to.
“There’s been very little coordination between the centre and the regions and the nations. I think people are pretty fed up. I think they feel that they’re treated in many ways as second class citizens and something has got to be done about it.
“You can’t have the elites talking to the elites, you have got to involve the people in what you are talking about, and they have got views now on how the pandemic was dealt with, how the recession has been dealt with.” He said.
The Sunday polls carried out in the four nations of the UK confirms the former prime minister’s fears as it showed that a majority of voters thought Scotland was likely to be independent within the next 10 years.
In Scotland, the poll found that 49% of people backed independence compared with 44% opposed – a margin of 52% to 48% if undecideds are excluded.
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, promised a new referendum on independence if the Scottish National party won another majority in elections to the Scottish parliament in May.
