Eight months after 56.5 per cent of Cornish residents voted Leave, the region received some unwelcome news.
Those who helped to tip the country towards Brexit no doubt did so in the knowledge that £60m of annual EU funding would have to be sacrificed. But the council hoped the government could reassure the region by making up for it in domestic funding.
Instead, in the latest funding round of “growth deal” investment, the Department for Communities and Local Government awarded the region £18m. It is the last round of such funding, and councillors are worried about what the future holds.
According to the Independent, Julian German, Cornwall Council’s member for the economy, complained that: “The current process forces Cornwall to compete for investment with more affluent places such as London, Birmingham, Bristol, and the South East.”
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It’s possible to feel sorry for Cornwall. But only up to a point. Here are some of the people and places I feel more sorry for:
- EU nationals in the UK, who face the fear of deportation after Brexit.
- British expats abroad who didn’t get to vote because they had been abroad 15 years, even though the result will affect them forever.
- Anyone with a stake in the Northern Irish peace process.
- The Highlands and Islands, a rural region of Scotland just as reliant on EU funding as Cornwall, and which voted to stay in the EU.
- Academics who rely on EU funding.
- Black and minority ethnic groups who have experienced a post-Brexit rise in hate crime.
- Millennials who voted to stay in the EU and will have to live the longest with the consequences of leaving.
- Children, who didn’t even get to vote.
- Anyone who voted Remain and now dreads dinner with their family.
- Scots who voted No in 2014 in order to stay in the EU.
- The Labour party.