Why Boris Johnson’s failings in the north will come back to haunt him

The successes of the devolved administrations during the pandemic have exposed the mistakes in Westminster, writes Sean O’Grady. The row over the new tiered lockdown system provides a great opportunity for mayors to demand more powers

A bar sign in Manchester calling for the cancellation of curfews on venues (PA)

Not so long ago, the United Kingdom was one of the most centralised of the mature democracies, with only France having more power concentrated at the centre. Now, however, thanks to successive waves of devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the establishment of powerful elected mayors across many of its major cities, the task of governing Britain is becoming an increasingly complex and transactional one. An unlikely alliance of Brexit and Covid-19 is exacerbating and exaggerating differences in a way that would have been impossible before Tony Blair’s government began this process of far-reaching constitutional reform almost a quarter century ago – one that was given added impetus under David Cameron’s administration, with its grand talk of the “northern powerhouse” and granting local government more freedom to spend money as it thinks fit. To the casual observer, or at least an unkind one, it looks like the Balkanisation of Britain.  

Even a government with a working majority of 87, in the middle of a public health pandemic, is unable to easily impose its will on, say, Middlesbrough, Manchester or Liverpool. Northern mayors, with Andy Burnham in Manchester proving the most powerful voice in the bully pulpit, have used the authority of their popular mandates to question government policy. They ask, rightly, for the scientific basis of the government’s new measures. The mayors, equally understandably, also demand financial support commensurate with the economic sacrifices their conurbations and regions are being asked to make. Above all, they have complained loudly about not being consulted about what is being done to their cities, and hearing the news from the newspapers. With far fewer formal powers than Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland, Mark Drakeford in Wales and Arlene Foster in Northern Ireland, the likes of Burnham, Joe Anderson and Dan Jarvis are punching above their weight in Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield respectively. Sturgeon, meanwhile, has made the most of differences between Edinburgh and London on Brexit as well as public health. She looks forward to a landslide of her own in next year’s Scottish parliament elections, and a renewed bid for independence. Even with Covid-19, Scotland wants to develop its own “tiering” framework, just as it has gone its own way on the app, mandatory face coverings, and other measures. Critics say the SNP tweaks UK arrangements for the sake of it, to the detriment of a clear UK-wide public message.