More significant than the content of Gordon Brown’s speech at a Better Together event today is the mere fact of it at all. At the outset of the Scottish independence battle, Brown refused to join the unionist umbrella group in favour of working with the single-party United with Labour. This reflected both his unremitting anti-Toryism and his reluctance to join forces with Alistair Darling, the chancellor with whom he clashed so often in the final years of his premiership. But with less than five months to go until the referendum, the former PM has cast aside hostilities and agreed to speak on a Better Together platform at Glasgow University at 5pm today.
The appearance has been planned for some time but that it coincides with the No campaign’s smallest poll lead to data (just three points separate the two sides in the latest ICM survey) means it will be written up as a desperate roll of the dice by the unionists. There is, however, no doubt that Brown represents a considerable threat to Scottish independence, as even Alex Salmond has been known to acknowledge. The former PM is significantly more popular in Scotland than he is south of the border and has a strong connection with the working class swing voters who have been defecting to the Yes side in recent weeks. At the 2010 general election, while Labour’s vote fell by 6.2 per cent across the UK, it rose by 2.5 per cent in Scotland and the party held onto all 41 of its seats. This was thanks in no small part to Brown, whose own constituency vote rose by 6.4 per cent.
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