Gordon Brown: The United Kingdom is united in name only

Whatever ties bind the UK together are being severely strained with different regions and industries trying to opt out of a hard Brexit from the European Union, writes Gordon Brown

TODAY, the United Kingdom is united in name only. With different regions and industries desperately trying to opt out of a “hard Brexit” from the EU, and Scotland even considering independence, whatever ties bind the UK together are being severely strained.

This is no temporary or passing phenomenon. The vote to leave the EU was fuelled by deep-seated public anger about the huge structural inequalities between the UK’s north and the south — inequalities that, as UK chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond acknowledged this week, are the worst in Europe.