Gordon Brown: 'In the Long Term, Ireland Will Be United'
Gordon Brown said a united Ireland is inevitable — “of course, in the long term, Ireland will be united”, though through “a long process where people have got to come together” — while restating his opposition to Scottish independence, days after Mr Burnham declared a border poll “off the table”. The former prime minister, who was chancellor when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, also backed continued North Sea drilling to fund the energy transition.
When the architect-generation of the peace process says unification is a matter of “when”, it moves the Overton window in a way no Sinn Féin press release can — and the timing, days after the current prime minister took the question off the table in Belfast, turns an interview aside into an intervention. Brown’s distinction is characteristically worked out: Ireland united by demography and geography’s logic, Scotland bound by Britain’s; unionists will note that both arguments once sounded confident the other way. His North Sea position gives cover to ministers weighing the Rosebank and Jackdaw decisions with consultations now closed. Watch how Dublin, Stormont — and Number 10 — respond to being handed a timetable-shaped question by Labour’s elder statesman.