The new British Labour government insists that the “devolution revolution”—step one of its constitutional shake-up, examined here—is all about putting powers “into the hands of local people.”
But if this were the case, then surely officials would not at the same time be stripping those very local people of their right to block new homes and infrastructure.
The fact that they are doing this—and that they will be “robust” with any local authority that gets in their way—gives the lie to the idea that Labour is interested in handing powers to locals. No amount of flowery language—such as deputy prime minister Angela Rayner’s plea for local leaders to “board the train of devolution as we surge along this journey to give every community a voice in the future of Britain”—should tempt us into believing otherwise.
Indeed, just as handing votes to children is designed—by Labour’s own admission—to help keep conservative politicians out of office, Sir Keir Starmer’s devolution and wider constitutional plans are intended to ensure that the Left will hold power even when it is not in power.
Under the British system, powers that have been—and are again being—shifted to places where the Left can maintain closer, more permanent control actually belong back in Parliament, where they came from. And given, as journalist Mick Hume told The European Conservative, that Parliament is “the closest thing to representative democracy we’ve got,” devolution—that is, “taking power away from Parliament”—“really means … less ‘power to the people!’”
Labour is still yet to explain exactly what powers will be held by a group it calls the “independent secretariat,” which will take an “active role” in mediating between these devolved administrations in a new ‘Council of the Nations and Regions.’ Also, how the members of this “independent” body will be appointed—not that many public figures are asking.
But now, British conservatives need also to keep a close eye on the local areas which respond to Rayner’s call to take up powers stripped from Parliament. If these are anything like the locations of most of the current devolved regional mayors, they will be left-leaning and metropolitan.
