Gordon Brown: Most people still believe in multilateral cooperation

Nationalists and populists may often speak the loudest in today's political discourse, but that does not make them representative, writes Gordon Brown

Support for international cooperation such as United Nations Peacekeeping missions is at 57% in Europe. 

With conflicts raging in some 50 countries, tariff wars becoming the new (abnormal) norm, and global economic growth falling to its slowest pace in generations, there seems to be little to cheer about as we enter 2026. The only certainty is that we are living with mounting uncertainty.

Underlying the tensions and turmoil of our times are three unmistakable shifts that are creating a new but still unsettled terrain: from a unipolar world to a multipolar one; from a rules-based order to a power-based one; and from a politics informed by economic openness to one that insists on protectionism, mercantilism, and industrial policies that emphasise domestic security. Politics is now driving economics, rather than vice versa.