It was strange to watch the Prime Minister lay bare Britain’s inability to stand up to the United States at his press conference this week while surrounded by flags in the pomp and grandeur of Whitehall.
The contradiction strikes almost any tourist to London today. The architectural legacy of imperial domination still shapes the capital, while the reality of current economic decline and creeping national embarrassment shapes the headlines.
The prosperity that enabled all of that showing-off a century and more ago was not funded by London alone. It was partly supported by imperial exploitation, of course, but it was also forged in the towns and cities in the north and Midlands. The extraordinary economic success of Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff and Leeds enabled Britain to take on its important role through the 19th century and into two world wars. It was the continuing success of these places in the early post-war period that enabled the country to pay for its role in the Cold War too.
Today, in contrast, as the forces of international crisis buffet these isles, we stand in a far more perilous state. Our capacity to defend ourselves and our collective will to stand with our partners is undermined by our failure to create an economy that works for us all.
The historical lessons are worth heeding as we think of ways of escaping our current predicament. Imperial expansion is not coming back, of course, despite the Brexiteers’ promises that leaving the EU would usher in “Global Britain”. But the economic rejuvenation of areas of the country outside London could still play a part.
That is why this week’s intervention calling for a renewed focus on tackling Britain’s stark regional inequality by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, is deeply relevant to the global mess that we find ourselves in. Speaking at a conference organised by UCL Policy Lab and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Burnham set out what he called “Manchesterism”, personified by a renewed focus on driving growth in all corners of Britain.
Burnham described Manchesterism as “a modern and functional response to the high-inequality, low-growth trap that came from the 1980s drive to over-centralise political power in the Treasury and privatise economic power”. He argued that these deep-rooted domestic challenges were driven by the deregulation and privatisation of the 1980s, coupled with the fiscal and political shocks of recent years.
“The austerity and Brexit of the 2010s deepened the hole by hollowing out English cities and towns,” he said. “It has all combined to leave the country in a low-growth doom-loop.”
Burnham has been making this point for years. Britain is not alone among advanced economies in having sharp regional inequalities. But the intensity of the difficulties in this country has limited the economic contribution of cities outside London for far too long, worsening our national malaise.
The failure to sustain growth and opportunity outside the south-east is one reason the UK is currently so vulnerable. The UK’s lack of progress on regional growth means that today we are more dependent on the whims and favours of big companies headquartered in the United States. And, as Ed Miliband has made clear, our continual reliance on fossil fuels leaves us vulnerable to petrostates and dictators.
All of this worsens our political crises too. Vast swathes of the country still feel at best frustrated and at worst hostile to our political and economic institutions. Whether it’s the cancellation of the Manchester-to-Birmingham leg of HS2 by Rishi Sunak, or the failure to build a mass transit system in Leeds (still the largest city in Europe without one), time and again voters across Britain detect a political system that continues to prioritise the capital and the south-east.
Burnham, with his “Manchesterism”, is encouraging us to remove one of the main barriers to UK prosperity and productivity by embracing a far more radical devolution of economic power to cities other than London. In more normal times, it might appear to be a risky approach. But probably no more.
For too long, political leaders have treated security and foreign policy as separate from everyday domestic concerns and economic inequalities. In truth, genuine national prosperity across Britain is vital to our collective security. Today, Britain has a set of cities primed and ready to supply it with not just the people and ideas needed to fuel domestic success, but also the wider capacity to defend it against trade and security threats. After all, as history shows, Britain has only ever been able to stand tall in the world, alongside partners, when it’s allowed all parts of the country to succeed.
[Further reading: Britain is still “in hock to the bond markets”]
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