Gordon Brown’s Brexit advice: the UK should ‘lead not leave’

Britain's former Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivers a speech on the Labour Party's leadership election in London, Britain August 16, 2015

Image: REUTERS/Neil Hall

Henry Taylor
Previously, Lead, Product and Innovation, Digital media, World Economic Forum Geneva

On 23 June, UK voters will decide whether or not to remain in the European Union. While the latest figures reveal the Leave campaign has edged slightly ahead, another leading figure has come out in support of staying.

Gordon Brown, former UK prime minister and current UN special envoy for global education, voiced his support for the Remain campaign in an impassioned speech.

Set in Coventry Cathedral – which was bombed during the Second World War – the former prime minister asks “what message would we send to the rest of the world if we the British people were to walk away from our nearest neighbours?”

“The Europe that we are creating is not simply a marketplace, it is a community where every single worker has rights – to holiday pay and a maximum working week – so that the good employer cannot be undercut by the bad, and the bad by the worst in a race to the bottom.”

Read more of our Brexit coverage here, and watch the video below:

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