Gordon Brown has said public office should never become a “platform for private gain” after former Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar accepted a peerage to join Andy Burnham’s government.
The former prime minister made the remarks at the University of Glasgow, where he was speaking at an event promoting his new book, The Future Starts With Us. Brown also said he was “not much in favour of taking honours” as he explained why he had rejected titles himself.
Brown on honours and public service
Brown did not refer directly to Sarwar in his answer, but said people entering politics should do so to advance the public good and should keep serving after they leave office.
It comes after Sarwar formally joined the Lords on August 24 as Lord Sarwar, following the announcement of his peerage on July 22.
Brown has long opposed the House of Lords in its current form, and in 2022 chaired a Labour commission that recommended replacing it with an elected chamber representing the nations and regions of the UK.
Asked by an audience member in Glasgow what had influenced his decision to reject an honour, he said: “I think if you go into politics particularly, you can’t go in for any other reason than that you want to advance the good of the public.
“And I think, once you leave politics, you’ve got to try and do your best to keep your public service up in some way or another.
“So I’ve never believed that public office should be the platform for private gain, and I certainly don’t feel that you deserve any honour for what you’ve done.”
Brown, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2010 after a decade as chancellor, said the greatest honour he had received was being elected by the people he represented.
Focus on devolution and communities
He also used the Glasgow appearance to call for devolution to go further than transferring power to councils, arguing that local communities should have more control over services and public money.
“There’s a lot of talk about devolution, which is devolution down to the local authority,” he said.
“But perhaps we should be talking about devolution down to the local community and empowering local communities to make their own decisions about local services, to make decisions about the allocation of funds.”
Brown suggested governments could create a capital fund to help people build community organisations and provide more support for training local leaders.
In recent interviews around his book, he has said Scotland’s current constitutional settlement is “not satisfactory” while maintaining independence is not the answer. He has also said he believes Ireland will be united in the long term.
Protest outside the venue
The former prime minister’s appearance in Glasgow was met by a pro-Palestinian protest outside the venue, where demonstrators chanted “Gordon Brown, shame on you” and said he was “not welcome here”.
A protester from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign told News Briefing Team the demonstration centred on what they described as Brown’s association with the Jewish National Fund, while also criticising his record on the Middle East.
Scottish Labour MSP Paul Sweeney told News Briefing Team afterwards that he had enjoyed the part of Brown’s speech he was able to hear, but said he had missed some of the event because he had been unable to get inside while protesters were blocking the entrance.
Brown acknowledged the demonstration in his opening remarks, telling the audience that Glasgow students had always been “very independent-minded”.
Book tour themes
Much of the evening focused on the main argument of Brown’s new book: that the erosion of community life at home is linked to the breakdown of international co-operation and the rise of populist politics.
He warned that the “public square is dying”, pointing to falling membership of political parties, trade unions, churches, clubs and other civic organisations.
Brown argued that political parties had increasingly become election machines run from the centre rather than organisations rooted in their local communities, creating a vacuum that populist movements have been able to exploit.
Asked about Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Brown said he believed the Labour leader was reflecting a public desire for greater optimism after years of economic and political disappointment.
He also urged the Government to put more emphasis on innovation to boost economic growth, saying Britain was good at creating start-up companies but “pretty poor at scale-ups”.
Brown said the UK had world-leading universities and strengths in medicine, technology and the creative industries, but too often failed to turn discoveries into successful British companies and jobs. “My focus would be on us as the innovation nation,” he said.
He also repeated warnings about the increasingly unstable international order, arguing the world was moving away from rules and towards raw power exercised by leaders including Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
Brown said the world was now in a “dangerous” period, citing Russia’s war in Ukraine and threats against Britain, but said there remained public support internationally for countries working together rather than adopting nationalist “country first” policies.
The Glasgow appearance was part of Brown’s promotional tour for The Future Starts With Us.
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