The upgrade was a total failure, here's the proof

In the 2019 UK general election, regional inequality took center stage. Conservative candidate Boris Johnson exploited widespread pro-Brexit sentiment and capitalized on how the Labor Party had been weakened under Jeremy Corbyn to achieve victory.

Johnson owed his victory as much to the fact that he turned to traditionally Labor seats in the north (in what is now known as the Red Wall) as to the traditional Conservative heartlands of the south. With this new political force in the north of England, Johnson characterized his flagship policy as leveling up.

Few policy areas have truly impacted the British public consciousness as the North-South divide has. This socio-economic gap pitting London and the south of England against the more economically struggling north emerged during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with George Orwell one of the first to identify it in his 1937 book , The Road to Wigan Pier.

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Since then, governments have tried to combat regional inequalities, with questionable success. In my own research, I compared the north-south division to the English equivalent of the Gordian knot. This legend, dating from the time of Alexander the Great, spoke of a problem so insoluble that only a radical solution could solve it. Alexander cut the knot in two with his sword. However, so far successive British politicians have failed to locate their sword.

By increasing the level, Johnson might have seemed to buck that trend after being elected in 2019. But two years after leaving power, Labor is set to cancel the program altogether if he wins the 4th July. so this is what could replace it.

A post-Brexit policy

The Cameron government's equivalent of leveling up was Northern Power, which focused on the development of the North in general. Although rhetorically similarJohnson steps up his policy intended for extend the powers of cities to the rest of the country.

The upgrade was inextricably linked to the post-Brexit environment. He sought to remedy the perceived revoltespoused by the Leave campaign, against years of city-centric politics.

Rather than simply addressing north-south divisions, Johnson's rhetoric focused on leveling all places. His policy, meanwhile, spoke of focusing on places specifically affected by Brexit. This mainly meant cities.

Furthermore, following the UK's departure from the EU, the government found itself facing a huge funding gap previously filled by EU structural funds. amounting to almost 10 billion.

Johnson's solution was to design three funds: the cities fund (worth 3.6 billion), the shared prosperity fund (ultimately worth 2.6 billion), and the upgrade fund (worth 4.8 billion). The towns fund focused exclusively on England, as did, initially, the leveling up fund until pressure from the devolved governments forced a U-turn.

However, in practice, as research has shown, these funds have not reached the places that need them most. In Wales, the €30 million annual allocation from the Shared Prosperity Fund was just 8% of what the country previously received through EU funding. This prompted the then Finance Minister Vaughan Gething to declare that Wales now had fewer votes for less money.

Somewhere else, the news showed that when funds were first allocated to towns, 39 of 45 towns were in Tory-controlled areas, amid allegations that ministers ignored civil service advice in order to fund low-income areas. priorities.

My colleague Olivier Sykes and I showed that the towns fund also neglected seemingly obvious beneficiaries, including Blackpool and Stoke-on-Trent, two of the most deprived local authorities in England.

Our research showed that the Shared Prosperity Fund was distributed equally unevenly. Here, each local authority is assigned a rank (level 1, 2 or 3) corresponding approximately to decreasing priority levels.

While 18 of the 20 most deprived local authorities achieved Tier 1 status, we found that other much less deprived areas (including High Peak, Richmondshire and Derbyshire Dales) also achieved the same Tier 1 status. At the same time, deprived areas including Hackney, Salford and Tower Hamlets were overlooked for Tier 1 status.

Going further, and mirroring the accusations of pork barrel politics that surrounded the municipal fund, each of these least deprived areas was held by a Conservative MP. These included the seat of Rishi Sunak of Richmondshire.

So it’s clear that despite a decade of Northern power, leveling up and post-Brexit funding, the narrative has failed to deliver on its promises. The United Kingdom remains deeply divided, this Gordian knot well and truly tied. Indeed, the cancellation, since 2021, of the two northern sections of the high-speed rail network, HS2, a crucial tool for achieving leveling up, gives the feeling of a policy that is moving backwards and not moving forward. not.