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Behind the future economic and political relationship between the UK and the EU, and the (mis)management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the question of how to revive the towns and cities of the north of England (and its other marginal communities) will loom in 2021 as one of the key issues in UK politics. Resentment of industrial decline, followed by cuts in funding for local government, education and transport, fuelled support first for leaving the EU and then for deserting Labour. Boris Johnson has pledged to invest in bringing prosperity back to former industrial communities. Keir Starmer is feeling his way towards regaining their support, more by embracing their conservative values than promising massive spending. But what do Liberal Democrats have to offer them?
This raises existential problems for all three parties. Johnson’s promises imply a larger state, with higher taxes, engaging in rebuilding local and regional economies – anathema to the small-state libertarians who now crowd the Conservative backbenches. Starmer is struggling to reconcile the metropolitan liberals who provide much of his activist base with the social nostalgia these communities cling to. But we, too, are a party of university towns and graduates, liberals in the widest sense: we cannot follow Starmer in attempting to embrace rediscovered ‘working class values’, which in any case many of the younger generation in such communities do not share.
We do however have determined local activists in many of these neglected communities, with hopes of winning local elections in May or June. So what should our platform be, consistent with our values? Can we make the future of local democracy itself an issue that will appeal? The Conservatives clearly despise local government: their preference for awarding contracts to multinational companies rather than partnering with local authorities to handle responses to the pandemic has been an expensive disaster. Bullying local government on school closures has been as bad. Moving bits of central departments to ‘red wall’ seats while keeping power in London is a poor substitute for devolving power. But we need to think carefully how best to present a case for stronger local government and less direction from London, if we want to win over discontented voters.