Government ignores us, it’s time to put Yorkshire first - Colin Speakman

In stark contrast to all the empty promises, in reality local authorities in Yorkshire are facing yet more financial squeeze on their already stretched-to-breaking budgets in 2022-23. This means fewer resources to help the poorest and least advantaged in their communities, who face not only hardship but destitution, as energy costs soar by unimaginable amounts.

Cost of living increases are estimated to touch seven per cent by April but could be even higher in essential basics like food. Support for the most vulnerable is cut yet again.

Even the sober and cautious Office for National Statistics has calculated that our Brexit adventure is costing the nation at least four per cent in delays, queues, red tape and frustration (just try sending a parcel abroad), with many exporters either going out of business in despair or relocating their enterprise to Ireland or the Netherlands to recapture their mainland Europe customer base. The damage to Britain and our world reputation is incalculable.

What is likely to emerge from the cost of living crisis is now brutally clear. Whole areas of Britain are being ignored by a Government for whom a region like Yorkshire is little more than remote part of a long vanished Empire.

So how do we cope with what will be Britain’s worst financial recession in a generation? It will be much worse than previous recessions because the safety net in terms of welfare benefits sufficient to sustain a moderate standard of living are no longer in place.

Even working families are now depending on food banks to survive, which have gradually become not an emergency measure but a permanent feature of our towns and cities.

In what is one of the richest countries of the world, where the better off flaunt their wealth, the poorest must rely on charity to stay alive. The answer can only be – self help. One characteristic of people in Yorkshire in time of war or economic recession, is their resilience.

Communities, perhaps most especially in poorer rural or working class areas, have always produced people of energy and compassion who have formed themselves into formal or informal action groups to help their neighbours, often forming themselves into co-operatives or mutual societies of which Yorkshire has a proud tradition.

Faith groups – whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh – have not only been there for their own communities but for those of other faiths, or no faith, at times of crisis.

Many Yorkshire-based businesses are also leading the way, not only by helping charities but by buying and employing local, and supporting other small businesses. This might include helping our upland farmers who may soon by forced off their land by a rash post-Brexit deal.

If central Government is failing us, as many people believe it is, then it is time we prioritised support for our local communities. We need to help the people of Yorkshire escape the dead hand of uncaring centralised bureaucracies, and build from the bottom up, and ensure that elected councillors put the needs of their communities first, not party loyalties or dogma. We need politicians who listen.

We also, in Yorkshire, need to work together at a regional level, to ensure that much more of the profits and taxes earned in Yorkshire stay in Yorkshire, and are not absorbed by the London oligarchy in profit and share options to be invested in offshore tax havens. If that means a regional investment bank to support Yorkshire businesses and jobs, bring it on.

Taking back control may be a fine slogan but it doesn’t stop at Westminster. Yorkshire needs to control its own destiny and avoid central Government’s neo-colonial divide and rule tactics, which divides up the county into potential rivals, rural versus urban, North, West, South and East Yorkshire, Hull, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, or York, all set against each other, whether mayors or councils, all competing for the same diminishing token London handouts.

The vision of One Yorkshire requires our elected politicians to build on what we have common, our great region with its extraordinary natural resources, its capable, intelligent and creative workforce, its potential to take forward the coming green industrial revolution.

This means burying political differences, putting Yorkshire first, working with our communities to secure not only the best possible deal from our overlords but freedom to take our own decisions, and control our own destiny, in the troubling times ahead.

Colin Speakman is an author, environmentalist, transport campaigner, co-creator of the Dales Way and chairman of the Dales Way Association.

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