Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said a lengthy extension to Brexit day would allow time for citizens’ assemblies across the country to break the political impasse over the U.K.’s departure from the EU.

In an op-ed published in the Guardian Saturday, the former Labour leader proposed establishing regional public hearings to develop new approaches and re-establish lost trust between MPs and their constituents. The extension could help “reunite a divided country,” Brown wrote.

The assemblies — a form of participatory democracy used in the Republic of Ireland — would “allow straight talking and clear thinking about the concerns that brought about Brexit in the first place.”

The EU has given the U.K. a deadline of April 12 to either leave with no deal or propose a different plan. That would require a lengthy extension to the Article 50 negotiating period, meaning that the U.K. would have to field candidates in the upcoming European Parliament election in May.

Brown batted away concerns about the U.K.’s participation in the polls. He said the U.K. could hold “indirect elections,” whereby MPs already serving would be put on the candidate list by the British parliament itself, and the U.K. would not participate in the election of the presidents of the European Commission and Parliament.

“By striking out on a new path, we can still save our country from decades of recriminations and decline at home, and diminution in the eyes of the world.”