Labour needs radical devolution plan to win in England: Yorkshire Post Letters

IT was a pleasure to read “A simple plan for a devolved Britain” by Austin Mitchell, doughty campaigner for Yorkshire, devolution, and electoral reform (The Yorkshire Post, December 28).

I agree with his diagnosis (“a patchwork quilt of impotent authorities, devolution’s a mess so start afresh”) but I think we need a more radical cure.

Austin repeats Gordon Brown’s “nations and regions” trope, but it’s hard to find enthusiasm for this amongst the English, who see it as breaking up England in order to prop up the Union.

People north and south of the border have seen through Labour’s desperation to bribe Scotland in order to keep the UK together and (an increasingly forlorn hope) to win back those Scottish seats as a route back to power.

I would rather read from Austin (and from any remaining free thinkers in Labour) a blueprint for England in a more fully devolved UK in which Scotland (and Wales?) are independent in all but name – only a thin layer of central government with almost all important business, and civil service administration, delegated to the three nations with the House of Commons becoming in effect the English Parliament. (The unofficial Irish reunification process, helped by Brexit, is already taking care of Northern Ireland).

Labour must show us what it can offer England, in order to win in England. Part of that offer must include electoral reform, but not breaking England into regions until England has its own parliament. Once we get to that stage, the regions need to be bigger than the nine EU regions proposed by Austin.

Four would be enough: North; Midlands; South-East-including-London; and South-West. Each regional government would delegate some powers to its boroughs, conurbations, and districts but not to the troublesome county councils. They are both too small and too large for administration (but perfect for popular geography, for which purpose they should be kept).

From: Roger Crossley, Silkstone, Barnsley.

Mr Noy, a self-proclaimed Southerner (The Yorkshire Post, December 26), says he enjoyed a ‘much higher standard of living in Ipswich’ than – wait for it – Pudsey.

Now I have nothing against Pudsey. I am sure it is a fine place to live, and know for certain that like all places in Yorkshire, it has staggering countryside on its doorstep.

So Mr Noy needs to qualify what he means by ‘standard of living’.

I’m afraid he has fallen into the trap of using ‘the North’ as an all encompassing paraphrase which conveniently covers his overall perceptions.

I find that generally ‘Southerners’ have very little concept of the vastness and variety of Yorkshire, let alone ‘the North’, and will use stereotypical perceptions for too loosely.

As for Ipswich, I’m not sure if the good people of Suffolk would so easily brand themselves as Southerners.

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