Gordon Brown’s  catastrophic decision to sell off Britain’s gold reserves has cost the country a staggering £48billion, the Daily Express can reveal. The former Labour Chancellor flogged more than half the nation’s gold holdings between 1999 and 2002 at rock-bottom prices, just as the precious metal was about to embark on a historic 25-year bull run. The scale of Mr Brown’s disaster has been laid bare as gold hit record highs of around £3,700 per troy ounce this week, with experts warning Britain is now dangerously exposed to risky US government bonds rather than the safe-haven asset. Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: “When Labour sold Britain’s gold at the bottom of the market, that wasn’t bad luck. It was bad leadership.” He added: “The cost of that disastrous decision is still being paid by the British people.”

Analysis shows the gold was sold for around £2billion in proceeds, roughly £4billion when adjusted for inflation. Today, that same gold would be worth approximately £48billion. Callum McGoldrick, investigations campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Gordon Brown’s decision to sell off the nation’s gold reserves at a historic low price was a staggering act of fiscal mismanagement that has cost the UK tens of billions of pounds.”

He added: “This was a short-sighted move that prioritised short-term cash over long-term national wealth. It is a stark reminder of how poor economic stewardship can have devastating long-term consequences for taxpayers.”

Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter, said Brown began selling “within three months of what now stands as a 25-year low point, on the cusp of a decade that would usher in the bursting of the tech bubble and the global financial crisis.”

She warned: “It is clear that the UK now has more meaningful exposure to US government bonds at a time of rising US government indebtedness, a falling dollar and weakening institutions.”

The disastrous selloff will be remembered as one of the most infamous economic blunders in British history, with critics dubbing it “Brown’s Bottom”, a reference to the rock-bottom prices at which he flogged off the asset. At the time, gold had roughly halved in value over the previous 20 years, leading Brown to believe diversifying into other assets made sense. The proceeds were reinvested in sovereign bonds, with the income reinvested over time.

But the timing proved utterly catastrophic. Just months after Brown began selling, gold prices started their meteoric rise, driven by global financial crises, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and growing concerns about the stability of Western institutions.

Ms James added: “Whilst gold has exceeded all expectations in recent years, its rise is an important reminder that long-held assumptions, including that the dollar will remain unchallenged as the global reserve currency and the US will remain an ally of the West, do at times need challenging.”

The selloff was part of a wider trend among central banks at the time. Many governments were offloading gold reserves, believing the precious metal was a poor investment compared to interest-bearing assets. There was even a Central Bank Gold Agreement to coordinate sales and prevent prices from crashing further.

Julian Jessop, economics fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, defended Brown’s decision, saying it “made sense at the time because gold, which accounted for around half of the UK’s official reserves, had performed poorly as an investment for many years.”

He added that the launch of the euro in 1999 “provided an opportunity to diversify the UK’s reserves into a new currency which was widely expected to rival the US dollar.”

The proceeds were also reinvested in assets that paid interest, generating additional income for the Treasury.

But for critics, Brown’s blunder remains an enduring symbol of Labour economic mismanagement, a multi-billion-pound mistake that has deprived Britain of a financial cushion precisely when global uncertainty is at its highest.

With gold now at record highs and US government debt spiralling, questions are once again being asked about whether Britain made the right call in abandoning the ultimate safe-haven asset.​ 

​The Treasury declined to comment.