Of course he also gets some of that in. But: that has been the line of Britain since... Thatcher. If not longer. It does not explain Brown shifting from his previous contemptuous indifference to this overture.

To take out the relevant part:

Recent financial turbulence was "a wake-up call" for every economy, the Prime Minister told an audience of business leaders.

With regard to this turbulence, though, Britain is more equal than others, as we know.

He also urged the EU to focus on economic reform and to be open, flexible and outward-looking rather than protectionist.

Standard British boilerplate.

Brown said the EU must act immediately to protect against financial turbulence. He plans to host a meeting this month with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to discuss stability measures.

Note the highlighted words. It's not protectionism if you're protecting the City.

Whenever there's a big shitpile, people try to shove the shit towards others. I've seen this happening live in an environmental NGO I interned in (you'd think work relations are good in an NGO, but no...), and have heard quotes using this literal terminology (in Dutch). I've also seen it happening in a marketing firm I worked in. It's not so much shifting the blame (also important) as making others deal with the problem. Really a basic principle of organisational logic.

Brown is now trying to make Merkel, Sarkozy, Prodi et al deal with his problem. They should realise that this puts them in a good position to extract far-reaching concessions from Brown, if they are to do anything at all.