Rebuilding the public square
Published: 28 May 2025
Commentary
Gordon Brown made a passionate plea for all of us to play a part in strengthening our civic infrastructure, during his delivery of the John Smith Memorial Lecture on 21 May in London’s Cadogan Hall. Eddie Barnes, Director of the John Smith Centre, reflects on a ‘remarkable performance’.
Speaking without notes for more than an hour to a packed audience, Gordon Brown cast his gaze across a vast array of subjects, told a lot of great stories from his time as Prime Minister and Chancellor, and reeled off statistics, quotes, and poetry to support his points. As one student watching on put it: “It was proof that politics can still make you think, not just doomscroll”. And that, in short, is what this Centre is about.
But it wasn’t just a performance. Mr Brown’s used the speech to discuss what he considers to the biggest problem facing western nations: what he termed as the rise of the “us versus them” mentality; a “zero-sum” state where, “in order for me to gain, you have to lose”. This, he argued, was driving a dangerous “ethno-populist nationalism” that is breaking apart of international cooperation and putting our security and prosperity at risk. The former Prime Minister set out both his hypothesis for its causes and how best governments – and all of us as individuals – can respond.
The drivers, he said, were a combination of the following: financial disappointment, political disaffection, the perception that incumbents are failing to deliver, the impact of technology and the rise of social media, and a weakening of the social ties that bind us. In reflecting on what to do about it, the former Prime Minister focussed on two: the urgent need to respond to financial disappointment among western populations, and the similarly pressing crisis around what he described as “the breakdown of civil society”.
FINANCIAL DISAFFECTION
That Mr Brown raised economics isn’t perhaps a surprise. As our own UK Youth Poll found in March, financial anxieties are top of the list of priorities for young people. And the same is true for the population as a whole. Mr Brown noted: “The gap between expectations and experiences is making people angry” and thereby susceptible for populists entering the stage to point the finger of blame at others. If the cake isn’t growing, no wonder we resent the share going to others.
Mr Brown argued that a new economic model of growth was necessary “if we are going to deal with the financial dissatisfaction – the disappointment people have: that they were in manufacturing jobs and now they’re in a warehouse; that they were in skilled work and they’re now in unskilled work; that they were respected and now they’re not respected; and not taken seriously and treated as second-class citizens.” A country like the UK, he argued, must compete on high skills and invest more in innovation (He will have more to say on this at an economic conference at the University of Glasgow in two weeks’ time).
CIVIC BREAKDOWN
But if finding a route to economic growth was an obvious response to tackling the “us v them” world, Mr Brown’s second prescription – the rebuilding of our civic realm – has perhaps been less discussed. Mr Brown was blunt: “The second principle reason why populism is breaking through is because of what is happening to our civic society. If society is breaking down, then there is a vacuum that other people can fill,” he argued.
And, Mr Brown argued, the bonds of society are undoubtedly fraying. The former PM’s views have been moulded by new polling research he has been involved in examining the civic and social ties within several Western nations across Europe and America. He used the lecture to reveal some of his findings.
90% of people say they have only 5 close friends or fewer. Sixteen percent say they have no friends. A half of those polled say that, outside of friends and family, they have nobody to turn to if things are going wrong. A half also say they aren’t part of any organisation or civic group.
“What you are talking about is the breakdown of civic society,” Mr Brown told the audience in London’s Cadogan Hall. “You cannot have a society if you don’t have friends, and you don’t connect with them and listen and talk and discuss.”
He concluded:
“John Smith was the first to spot it when Mrs Thatcher said there’s no such thing as society, only families and individuals; actually there can be no such thing as society if people don’t meet each other, talk to each other, listen to each other, join with each other in clubs and associations, that connect with each other.”
“There can be no such thing as society if the public square is privatised and it’s taken over by Twitter and Facebook and it’s not a genuine public square but influenced by algorithms rather than genuine opinions.”
“And there’s no such thing as society if all your civic associations are breaking down. I believe that it’s that vacuum that’s one of the main reasons why populist nationalism is rising and I believe that it’s upon ourselves to do something about it.”
“In some cases you can say: this can be solved by someone at the top and in some cases you say this can be solved by a few leaders. (But) this can only be solved by ourselves. If we don’t join organisations and we don’t meet other people and be part of a civic society.”
“If the physical infrastructure broke down – if the roads and the railways and the airports were put out of operation, we’d be up in arms we’d say – spend the money get them moving again. If the financial infrastructure broke down – the banks and so on – and you couldn’t get your cash machines, you’d be saying get something done. But the civic infrastructure seems to be breaking down and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. And that’s why I say we’ve got to think about how we can do something better.”
Mr Brown ended on a note of hope – pointing out that the same polling had shown how most people do want to get involved in their communities. In a world where organisations such as Trade Unions, churches, working men’s clubs, Scouts, and political parties have all shed members rapidly over the last 40 years, the challenge now is how to create the “civic infrastructure” that will help those people do so.
Mr Brown cited sports clubs, Park Runs, and a group called “Warm Welcome” he supports, which provides a space for isolated people to meet each other. He also talked up the need for more exchange programmes, both from the UK into Europe and within the UK too. And he also urged the audience to themselves volunteer.
“It can be done – and it seems to me that the future of our civic society is also the future of our democracy and our politics,” he argued.
“And if you combine these two things: responding to financial disappointment and responding to the breakdown of civic society, we can go back to what John Smith talked about: a good economy depends on a good society and a good society depends on a good economy.”
We are all hugely grateful at the John Smith Centre to Gordon Brown for giving his time and energy to the lecture on Wednesday. His speech inspired the packed audience who came to watch him. We hope his words will inspire many more people to do their part to rebuild our public square.
Read the full blog on the John Smith Centre website.
First published: 28 May 2025