World 'sleepwalking' towards another financial crisis, Gordon Brown warns

Former prime minister says world is currently 'leaderless' and has not learnt lessons from 2008

The world is “sleepwalking” towards another financial crisis, Gordon Brown has warned.

The former prime minister said the world is currently “leaderless” and was now entering a period of vulnerability.

Mr Brown, who was the prime minister during the global meltdown from 2008 to 2009, said that many of the issues that emerged during the last crisis have remained unsolved and that the world was now moving into a period of vulnerability.

“We are in danger of sleepwalking into a future crisis,” Mr Brown told The Guardian.

“There is going to have to be a severe awakening to the escalation of risks, but we are in a leaderless world.”

Mr Brown was an important figure in helping to set up the G20, which was intended to ensure cooperation at times of crisis – something which the 67-year-old said he feared would not be the case if there was a major world issue now.

“The cooperation that was seen in 2008 would not be possible in a post-2018 crisis both in terms of central banks and governments working together. We would have a blame-sharing exercise rather than solving the problem,” he said.

Mr Brown had previously said that the failure to put guilty bankers in prison after the financial crash had paved the way for further gambling with public money.

He said: “If bankers who act fraudulently are not put in jail with their bonuses returned, assets confiscated and banned from future practice, we will only give a green light to similar risk-laden behaviour in new forms.”