Gordon Brown accuses Tories of 'whipping up English nationalism'

Former prime minister worries general election could tear country apart

A divisive general election campaign could further destabilise Britain's political situation and tear the country's warring political sides further apart, Gordon Brown has warned.

In an intervention on Monday night the former prime minister accused the Conservatives of "whipping up English nationalism" and and described the EU question was a "poison" in Britain national life.

But Mr Brown said the country’s "bitter divisions" were now "not just over Brexit", citing the north and south divide, strife between the rich and poor and between "the four nations that, until recently, formed a cohesive United Kingdom" as potential dividing lines.

“It will take far more than an election - perhaps a generation - to end our country’s now-widening divisions and to drain the poison that is increasingly infecting our national life," he told meeting of anti-racist group Hope Not Hate in London on Monday night.

“A huge majority of people in Britain - 77 per cent - now think that Brexit is fuelling prejudice and is making our country more divided than ever."

He added: “With more parliamentary candidates than ever sacked because of racism, sexism or homophobia, more and more social media activists exploiting the internet to troll and abuse and with fake news debasing our public discourse, and with - it is sad to say - so many women giving up as MPs in the face of threats of violence, our country’s bitter divisions are now not just over Brexit but between north and south, rich and poor and between the four nations that, until recently, formed a cohesive United Kingdom.

“With the SNP now threatening the hardest of 'hard’ separations and the Conservatives whipping up English nationalism with their claim Scotland will run England if there was a Labour government, nationalists on both sides are more interested in exploiting divisions rather than ending them."

The Conservatives have played up the possiblity of a second Scottish independence referendum that the SNP would ask for as the price of putting Jeremy Corbyn in downing Street in a hunt parliament. The strategy was thought to be effective in 2015 when deployed against Ed Miliband.

Activists from all parties have voiced fears for their safety during the unusual winter general election with its short, dark days amid the febrile political atmosphere.

Mr Brown added: “On December 12 we can resolve some of the urgent challenges - Brexit, austerity and the NHS - facing the country and for that we need a Labour Government - but all of the United Kingdom will have to work far harder to heal the wounds of recent years.

“Rebuilding national unity requires - as a starting point - tackling head-on, divisive nationalisms and racism - not least with new laws to root out anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

“It will also require politicians to reach out to and enter into a dialogue with the public, through, for example, citizens’ assemblies and a constitutional convention, to reinvigorate our public square and revamp failing institutions.

“And it will need measures to end the economic insecurity that is the breeding ground for populist nationalism.”