KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 ― In her quest to uncover corrupt government dealings, Sarawak-born Clare Rewcastle-Brown has admitted that having a former British prime minister as your brother-in-law who’s got her back has helped her heaps.

The founder and editor of London-based whistleblower website Sarawak Report (SR) and its sister organisation Radio Free Sarawak, spilled the beans to Esquire Malaysia magazine in its latest issue this month.

“I think [having former British prime minister Gordon Brown as a brother-in-law] has probably helped,” she was quoted telling the magazine in an interview conducted on June 6, just weeks before being cast into the spotlight over the allegations and counter-allegations surrounding SR’s reports on debt-riddled 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Rewcastle-Brown is married to Andrew Brown, ex-British PM Gordon Brown’s younger brother.

“One of the reasons I kept my identity secret for as long as I could was because I didn’t want to get him involved, particularly when he was still in office,” she was quoted saying.

Gordon was the UK’s one-term PM, from June 2007 to May 2010.

“But when he stepped down, I was bolder, and actually, he was really encouraging. When I started getting death threats, he said, ‘Look, you should just say who you are and what you’re doing because that’s the best way to deal with them’,” she added.

Before the 1MDB spotlight, the British journalist and activist had played a key role in highlighting the massive deforestation caused by unscrupulous loggers which she attributed to financial improprieties plaguing the Sarawak government under the leadership of its previous chief minister, Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud.

She attributed her activism to the exposure growing up as a child of the 1960s and 1970s, which she described as an era of “flower-power attitude… don’t mess with me, I’ve got rights”.

“When I was at university, there was a march every bloody weekend. Liberties have to be fought for and defended; otherwise, bullies will sneak in and nick ’em,” she was quoted saying.

Rewcastle-Brown, however, has been accused by a former Sarawak journalist of colluding with Malaysia’s opposition lawmakers to topple the incumbent Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak through allegedly doctored documents on his 1MDB brainchild.

She has denied the allegations against her and vowed to initiate legal action against her accuser, Lester Melanyi.