When the post-punk hero Mark E Smith intoned, more than 40 years ago, “the north will rise again”, he probably didn’t have in mind a constitutional commission chaired by Gordon Brown. But a lot has changed since 1980. Now even Britain’s political class in Westminster seems to have realised that the gaping socioeconomic divide between England’s north and south can be tackled only with root and branch reform.
Labour’s Report of the Commission on the UK’s Future is a genuinely radical set of proposals for combating regional inequality, and contrasts sharply with the Tories’ rather pitiful strategy for levelling up. Replacing the House of Lords with a democratic alternative, devolving control of transport, infrastructure and housing to local government, plans for moving large numbers of civil servants outside London – all these ideas suggest that Keir Starmer might just be serious about thoroughgoing reform of the most regionally unbalanced advanced economy in the world.
Yet a pessimist would be forgiven for thinking that we have heard all this before. Even if Starmer’s Labour wins a comfortable majority at the next general election (a big if), and even if he is able to subdue the compromising instincts in both his party and his own character (an even bigger if), he will have to do battle with the fact that every British government since the second world war has spectacularly failed to do anything but put a “sticking plaster” (a choice Starmer phrase) on the problem of regional inequality.
Indeed, an all-out cynic might suggest that a long line of governments stretching back to the postwar years has merely paid lip service to proposals for regional levelling up in order to neutralise and then bury them.
From the watering down and ultimate sidelining of the Wilson government’s devolutionary plans in the 1960s and 70s, to New Labour’s halfhearted attempts to introduce regional assemblies, and finally to the comically specious Conservative talk of a “northern powerhouse” and levelling up after 2010, successive rallying cries for geographical reform have merely acted as pseudo-populist diversions for governments seeking to win enough northern votes to secure power.
Meanwhile, the greater part of socioeconomic policy over several decades has overwhelmingly continued to favour London and the south-east – as the politicians touting their apparent commitment to devolution and regeneration have always known full well.
Beneath the superficial clamour to “level up this country” and let communities “take back control”, there is a stark reality that must be faced by anyone looking to create a truly egalitarian spread of power across England’s regions. This is simply that the country is so radically centralised in London – and areas such as those in England’s northern half are so profoundly historically disadvantaged by this centre-margins relationship – that anything short of a near-revolutionary overhaul of Britain’s constitution and system of governance is almost certain to be a total waste of time and money.
How might a Starmer-led Labour government move beyond this Groundhog Day scenario, in which governments promise change and everything stays the same? As in other policy areas, in order to introduce lasting reforms and stay in power for longer than a single, ignominious term, Starmer will have to make good on his apparent realisation that Britain’s existential malaise calls for bold, far-reaching policies.
This means going way beyond the failed schemes of the last few decades and rather mild-mannered talk of devolving power to “the most local level”. Proposals to devolve control of infrastructure and revamp the Lords are welcome. But the risk here is that this merely devolves responsibility (and therefore blame) to councils, mayoralties and putative second-chamber representatives for the effects of political mismanagement – and fiscal frugality – at a national level.
As suggested by Andy Burnham – who may yet prove to be the radical Labour prime minister the country needs – something as concrete as the clauses of Germany’s Grundgesetz constitution, which ensures equal distribution of funding between the country’s federal states, is probably the bare minimum needed to stop Westminster governments continually defaulting to the comfort zone of a laissez-faire economy powered mainly by London.
But it is difficult to imagine how such safeguards would work in the UK, which has nothing like the rational federal structure of modern Germany to make such legal provisions plausible. It follows that something resembling a fullblown English federalism, which creates Germany-like Länder out of the northern regions, will probably be the only way to lastingly level up the country. Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about a single, consolidated northern state governed by a Great North Assembly. In other words: empowering a capital-N North as a whole – or at least large, inclusive sub-regions like the north-east and north-west – rather than going in for more micro-forms of devolution, which are not ultimately all that different from David Cameron’s “big society” and its emphasis on giving power to local communities.
In an England where regional equality was guaranteed by the existence of large, empowered devolved territories, endless wrangles over which micro-localities were truly deserving of development and regeneration would make way for a more logical approach. This would distribute power and resources towards the periphery as a matter of course. A citizen in an imagined northern federal state would probably enjoy better, more comprehensive public transport, improved access to the best cultural amenities, higher living standards generally, and the sorts of employment opportunities currently only available to those within commuting distance of central London.
If we want to put an end to a long list of meaningless cliches and buzzwords when it comes to ending the north-south divide, we are going to have to go big or go home. Another watered-down compromise will not just be a disaster for the north – or for a Labour government whose reputation will hinge on its ability to achieve reform at a time of national unravelling – but for the country as a whole.
Alex Niven’s book The North Will Rise Again is out on 2 February 2023
