UK being torn apart by growing nationalism says former PM

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

In an opinion column for the Observer newspaper on Sunday, the former 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".

The UK 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 agreed with Brussels passed by members of Parliament. This prompted her resignation as prime minister and Brexit being pushed back to Oct 31.

Britain's Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the UK will leave the EU on the current deadline, whether a Brexit "divorce" deal — which sets out how Britain leaves — is agreed or not. The prime minister 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 soundbites, pledging token sums for the NHS 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 break-up of the union, while 56 percent of Tories (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 will accelerate the demand for independence. Only 15 percent disagree.

"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 about a future Labour government not blocking a second Scottish independence referendum.

Brown also blasted the Scottish National Party, 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 finished by saying 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, Brown said: "the first step is to stop no deal in its tracks".