Ex-PM Gordon Brown backs Remain campaign in EU debate

Two years ago former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown helped persuade his fellow Scots to stay as part of the United Kingdom.

Wednesday Brown joined the campaign trail again, this time to urge Britons - including Scots - to vote 'stay' in next month's EU referendum.

He became the latest world statesmen to say Britain is better as part of the EU, saying "it is not British to retreat to Europe's sidelines."

Brown's intervention came in a keynote speech Wednesday at the London School of Economics (LSE).

His audience were not taken by surprise, as his speech followed articles in two of Britain's major morning newspapers, the broadsheet Guardian and the tabloid, the Daily Mirror.

Brown's message echoed what he preached in Scotland two years ago when he said Scotland needed to stay to play its part in a United Kingdom.

Today he argued that Britain needed to be in the EU to shape Europe's responses to major issues such as terrorism, immigration and climate change.

He said: "There is no century except this one where Europe has been at peace and nations were not vying for supremacy. But for the last 70 years since World War Two, nations now "battle with arguments and ideas" and not "with weapons and armaments."

He said the future lay in a united Europe of states, rather a United States of Europe (USE). Many people have expressed the fear that closer EU ties was paving the way for an eventual USE.

He told his audience: "If this referendum is about anything it is about what kind of Britain we are and what kind of Britain we aspire to become.

"We should be a leader in Europe, not simply a member. We should not be fully out and we should not be half out. We should be fully in.

"We should recognize that the world has changed since the first referendum and we should be advocates for cooperation in an inter-dependent world."

In the Labour-leaning Daily Mirror, Brown in a two-page article poses the question why European football is seen as a pinnacle of the game in Britain, yet in other spheres "being in Europe" is viewed with suspicion.

He talks of a changing world which has seen the rise of Japan and then China, and a shift of manufacturing power across the world.

"We have become interconnected, part of an integrated economy and we are living through a period in human history marked out by our interdependence," he writes, quoting from his new book, released today, called "Britain Leading, Not Leaving."

In the Guardian, Brown says June's referendum should be a salute to Britain's irrepressible spirit, a tribute to "our tradition of looking outwards... as we demonstrate that we best honor our outward-looking internationalism by leading in Europe, not leaving it."

Like other major speeches by Remain supporters, the Leave campaign immediately criticized Brown.

A spokesman for Vote Leave said: "Gordon Brown was in a government that gave away part of our rebate (to Europe) and opened our borders across the EU. Lessons on the patriotic case for the EU will ring hollow from a prime minister with such a disastrous record in Europe." Endit