News / Politics

Gordon Brown intervenes on the unionist side in Scottish referendum debate

Sunday, 15 November 2020 5:02 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 15 November 2020 5:11 PM ]

Gordon Brown is one of the British establishment's most powerful voices on Scotland

Former Labor Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has waded into the Scottish referendum debate by firmly siding with British unionists.

Brown, who was PM from 2007 to 2010, has said a second referendum, or Indyref2, should not be held while Scotland “heals” from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Brown claimed a referendum on independence amounts to a distraction as Scotland grapples with “huge problems”.

“We’re in the middle of a virus, we’re in the middle of a recession”, Brown protested.

Brown, who is of Scottish descent, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that the country needed “time to heal” before “any divisive, conflicting referendum that really will cause consternation in Scotland for months and months to come”.

Taking a direct swipe at the leadership of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Brown made the unsubstantiated claim that “most Scottish people” disagree with the SNP’s plan to hold a referendum next year.

Brown’s claim flies in the face of the latest opinion survey which indicates that 58 percent of Scottish voters would choose YES if an independence referendum was held tomorrow.

Opinion poll indicates significant surge in support for Scottish independence

The latest opinion survey on Scottish independence indicates the biggest lead in a poll ever recorded for the pro-independence side.

For its part, the SNP is insistent that a favorable vote in the Scottish Parliamentary elections next May is tantamount to a vote for a second referendum on Scottish independence.

To that end, the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, has tweeted that a vote for the SNP next May is equivalent to a vote for Indyref2.

— Ian Blackford (@Ianblackford_MP) November 14, 2020 ">http://

It is the people of Scotland who will determine our future. That is their right, sovereignty rests with us collectively. A vote for @theSNP in 2021 is for that right to be exercised, we know it, @BorisJohnson knows it. https://t.co/qEYwMaZAd7
— Ian Blackford (@Ianblackford_MP) November 14, 2020

Blackford made his arguments more forcefully in the Sunday National newspaper where he insists a referendum would happen and “must take place in 2021”.

By stark contrast, only last week the Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack, dismissed the possibility of Indyref2 “for a generation”.