MORE than a million Labour supporters who voted to leave the EU have now turned their back on Brexit, Gordon Brown has insisted.

The former prime minister said recent polls showed only a quarter of Brits believe Brexit will create more opportunities for their family.

He was discussing his autobiography, My Life, Our Times, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Mr Brown said leavers and remainers now have one thing in common – “both are increasingly losing hope for a better future for Britain”.

He added: “Our country is often accused of being stuck in the past. The problem this time is that we are stuck in the present – and, as each day passes, becoming less and less optimistic about the future.

“Hope is the bridge between what is and what can be - and we now need to restore Britain as a land of hope by dealing directly with the problems that caused Brexit in the first place.

“Brexit happened not least because of a failure to address real problems brought about by globalisation – concerns about migration, sovereignty, wage stagnation, manufacturing decline, the quality of jobs and the prospects for young people.

“And Brexit cannot be resolved and Britain cannot end the divisions, re-unite and become hopeful again unless leaders rise to the challenge of dealing with these very real problems.”

Mr Brown, who served as Chancellor between 1997 and 2007 before becoming prime minister, said there were measures that could be taken to offer hope.

He said: “One of the principal reasons people cite for the vote to leave was fear of losing control to Brussels.

“But we can reassert our sovereignty with redirect to the European Court of Justice – just as France, Germany and Italy have all recently done – and enact a constitutional statute that insists that European decisions have to respect and uphold our country’s national identity

“Within ‘freedom of movement’ we can answer immigration concerns expressed by leave voters. We can require jobs to be registered first at local job centres, as in Switzerland; register new entrants; require them to report to job centres as is happening in Germany; require migrants to leave if they don’t have a job as happened in Belgium; outlaw social dumping as in France and we can have an 'immigration pressures fund' to help areas where public services are under pressure from higher numbers of users.”

He said it was necessary to build a “new social consensus for the age of the gig economy” and rebuild trust in institutions.