FORMER UK PRIME minister Gordon Brown has said that it is inevitable that Ireland will be united in the long term.

In an interview with The Guardian’s Saturday magazine, Brown was asked whether the geographical link between the North and the Republic meant it made sense to unite the two.

“Yes. Well, of course, in the long term, Ireland will be united,” he said, adding that it would be “a long process where people have got to come together and find a way of agreeing.”

“Basically, that is the issue: whether people can actually agree.”

Brown, who led the UK from 2007 to 2010, made the comments in the wake of UK prime minister Andy Burnham’s remarks this week that a united Ireland referendum is “off the table“.  

Brown was Tony Blair’s chancellor when the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, and was prime minister when policing and justice powers were devolved in Northern Ireland in 2010.

Brown, who is Scottish born and raised, has vehemently opposed Scottish independence. But speaking to The Guardian, Brown said that Northern Ireland had a potentially different position in relation to the rest of the UK than Scotland.

“Scotland’s got to find a way of living in cooperation with other countries, and independence would not be the right way forward,” he said.

“We’re geographically, economically, socially, culturally linked to the rest of the United Kingdom, whether it’s Wales, England or parts of Ireland.”

Brown also told The Guardian that he did not wish to be a “backseat driver” when telling Andy Burnham – who previously served in Brown’s cabinet – what to do.

Burnham’s remarks have drawn an angry response from nationalist politicians, with Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald saying that no prime minister has the right to “high-handedly” remove the provision for a unity referendum from the Good Friday Agreement.

Niamh Smyth, Minister of State for Trade Promotion, also said that she “categorically and fundamentally” disagrees with Burnham’s comments. 

Meanwhile, DUP leader Gavin Robinson said Burnham had “put to bed the nonsense” speculation over a unity poll.

The Good Friday Agreement specifies that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – Chris Bryant – can decide to hold a border poll, also saying there is a duty to call one if it appears likely a majority would vote for Irish unification.

The people of Ireland must also vote in favour to effect constitutional change.

Chris Bryant has previously said that a border poll is “not top on the list of my priorities”.