English devolution could transorm society, but government needs to be careful what it wishes for
It was one the centrepieces of the 2015 General Election, and again it was a recurring promise when Labour swept to power in July in July last year but – with all the severe fiscal problems that have bested British society since the summer – devolution has been little more than a whisper.
In the coming months that’s all about to change, not least because distractions are needed badly right now. Labour’s English Devolution White Paper – which sets out proposals to empower local leaders and communities to drive growth and raise living standards across the country – was published and circulated to local government officers on 16th December and got almost immediately filed under things to look at in the new year by most of those saw it.
The concept – and how to implement it – had been in discussion since the July election, but it wasn’t until Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner presented the document formally at a business meeting in Leeds in December that the substance of the proposed restructuring of English governance became clear. Describing the launch as “a moment that I know many of us have been waiting for, for a long time” the Deputy PM promised that Labour’s devolution document is “a plan for putting more money in people’s pockets; A plan for putting politics back in the service of working people; A plan for stability, investment and reform, not chaos, austerity and decline; And it’s a plan that will deliver a decade of national renewal.”
So no small ambitions there, but is it deliverable and what kind of country might it deliver? At its core the 118 page plan intends to strip out government bureaucracy and hand more legislate powers to local mayors, especially in areas such as housing, transport and skills projects. Current two-tier local government will be replaced with unitary authorities and local mayors will become figureheads and strategic masters of their own regions, though what’s actually being proposed is primary direction from Westminster down to regional mayors who will then instruct local authorities – so really their tiers of decision-making replacing two.
In a peculiar but equally intriguing way the internal language of the English Devolution White paper document looks uncannily like it was cut and pasted from the numerous recent Synodal texts we’ve all been trying to understand – a centralised authority searching for creating greater democracy, inclusivity and power-sharing – but without really being able to think outside the present structural framework of the establishment.
When a very similar process was initiated for Wales some 30 years ago with the enactment of the Government of Wales Act 1998 under the Blair government, the proposal was also met with something far less than enthusiasm. Largely mocked as gesture politics it was thought that the best the Welsh could hope for was to grab control of minor domestic decisions like the painting of road signs, gained at the expense of accepting the ultimate sovereignty of Westminster.
For many in Wales this was no Blairite PR gimmick, but a profound capitulation of deeply-seated ambitions for ultimate independence that had been simmering since the 13th century era of Edward Longshanks and the Welsh princes. Back in my Welsh regional journalism days I will always remember interviewing a man who had once been one of the ringleaders of Sons of Glyndwr, a group of Welsh nationalists who had plotted to bomb the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales (now King Charles III). The plot was foiled and his abiding memory was of being driven away through the streets of Caernarvon, peering out of the police van at all the union jack bunting, flags and smiling pictures of the Prince of Wales. “I wondered what it had all been for,” he said laconically, “we were seeking freedom for the people of Wales and here they all were, celebrating their suppression and humiliation with such glee, cakes and enthusiasm.”
For me his comments have always epitomised the contradictions and complexities of nationalism, especially in a country where personal national identity is such a tightly twined ribbon of history, genetics, experience and irrational loyalties. You can even see this at play in the very language of the government’s new English Devolution Bill. It’s title implies separation, micro-management, division and plurality of identities, yet its internal content is thick with promises of building a new nation and a regenerated sense of Britishness. The assumption is that one leads to the other; the fear is always that it creates the opposite.
It was very similar fears that gripped the Irish Republican leader Michael Collins when he headed nervously to London in December 1921 to discuss an Anglo-Irish Treaty with British Prime Minister Lloyd George. In one of the most wrenching and historically significant decisions surrounding national identity and territories Collins was confronted with a terrible choice – on offer was a peace bought with the partition of Ireland, or an all-out war that the Irish would lose. What could he do – betray the historic dreams of a free, united Ireland, but take a once-in-history chance to wrench two thirds of it from British rule forever?
After a sleepless night of anxiety spent wandering the streets of London Collins opted for the latter. At the signing of the Treaty the following morning Lord Birkenhead remarked, “I may have signed my political death-warrant tonight,” to which Collins replied, “I may have signed my actual death warrant.” With such machinations the Irish Republic was founded but many did indeed believe Collins had betrayed the dream of a free, united Ireland and he was assassinated in an ambush by his own republicans just 12 months after signing the agreement.
Whilst Angela Rayner’s English Devolution Bill is hardly of similar historical – or fateful – significance it could have profound consequences for the future governance and structure of England, far beyond a mere reordering of local council chambers. Administrative devolution has all the capacity to enflame far deeper national narratives, as we witnessed in Scotland during the Nicola Sturgeon era. Over in Wales the shift towards a more fundamental independence has been an almost silent subscript, but it has not gone way. Indeed, quite the contrary – Much as Collins realised with Ireland, it was never going to be possible for the Senedd to proclaim the intention of a free, united Wales similar to the noises rumbling down from north of the Tweed. Possibly remembering the contradiction of all those union jacks fluttering in Caernarvon – and maybe even more ancient memories of Welsh suppression – the architects of Welsh devolution also worried that the people of Wales might actually reject an independent Scottish-style parliament, so the nation was offered a National Assembly instead.
It wasn’t a bad call, as even the Assembly idea just made it to reality, with a pitiful 25% of the Welsh population voting in favour of it. That said, it’s also worth noting that the day after marking its 25th birthday, the Welsh Senedd voted to increase its size by more than 50% and over the past quarter of a century it has engaged in a distinct and largely successfully strategy of policy-making that those surrounded by the crumbling walls of Westminster can only look at with increasing envy. Perhaps it is this that has inspired the new Labour government to commit itself so profoundly to moving political power away from Westminster. After all, much of what has been achieved in Wales has been achieved by an assembly dominated by Labour members, who have been able to drive through many liberal, socialist initiatives that would have met with far greater resistance elsewhere.
What is perhaps most significant about the English Devolution Bill is that it will finally put English devolution on a firmer constitutional footing. The flipside is that whilst this might sound to independence-minded campaigners as establishing a beach head, in practice it’s very likely going to mean the opposite – as the shape and power structures of independence handed down will likely be very different from independence won. The exact nature of local governance and structures is being described as “still a work in progress”, which all know is political speak for haven’t actually thought about the consequences too deeply.
For the moment we have a very left-of-centre socialist government pinning its hopes for the future of local governance and the rebuilding of national identity on models such as the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, who has so far managed to balance successfully immensely complex fiscal pressures with a fundamental commitment to socialist principles, though even he has struggled at times to support some government positions – most notably Keir Starmer’s decisions not to compensate the WASPI women, and to refuse a national enquiry into the grooming gangs scandal.
It will be very interesting to see how the English Devolution Bill plays out over the coming months, especially as it will have such profound implications for our sense of national identity and wellbeing when new localised structures with considerable powers start making decisions. No doubt our Prime Minister will be banking on more Andy Burnham’s coming to the fore but it’s worth noting that Mr Starmer has his political roots in Trotskyism (he was editor of the Trotskyist radical magazine Socialist Alternatives from 1986-7) – ironically at exactly the same time that another Trotskyist radical, Derek Hatton, who had become Deputy Director of Liverpool City Council in 1983, was kicking off the notorious ‘rate capping rebellion’ aimed at forcing Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government into dropping restrictive council spending powers.
Younger people may never have heard of Derek Hatton; others will remember him variously as a champion of the ordinary people, a nutcase who nearly brought the nation to its knees, or an outstanding hypocrite. Very much a reactionary product of the Thatcher era, Hatton also succeeded in causing utter chaos and division within the Labour party as his radical brand of socialism threw a spotlight on the Labour party’s own drift towards political hypocrisies.
If you say “Derek Hatton” to anyone over the age of 40 you are certainly in for an animated conversation and, whilst many current MPs may be too young to remember redundancy notices being delivered around Liverpool in taxis, there’s no such excuse for the Prime Minister. The notion of devolution and handing more decision-making powers down to a local level actually has the potential to make the UK a far more democratic and fair country, to reinvigorate local economies and create the potential for social action and the common good is immense. But for a government to say that the detail of how they’re going to achieve this is still “a work in progress” is unacceptable, as this kind of democratic process needs razor-focussed implementation, lest you unleash political chaos and uncontrollable consequences.
Joseph Kelly is a political theologian and publisher