Only one in five think Boris Johnson will deliver on levelling up plans, poll finds

Even people who voted Tory in 2019 are not wholly behind the PM’s plan, reports Jon Sharman

A Hope Not Hate poll may make uncomfortable reading for the PM, whose own voters remain unconvinced (Getty Images)

Four-fifths of Britons lack confidence in Boris Johnson’s plan to “level up” the country, a survey suggests.

Some 59 per cent of people polled for a new report by Hope Not Hate, the anti-far-right group, said they thought the prime minister would not succeed in “levelling up” less affluent parts of the country, and a further 21 per cent said they did not know. Only one-fifth had a positive view.

Unsurprisingly, pessimism was more prevalent among Labour voters, of whom nearly three-quarters said the PM’s effort was doomed. More worryingly for Mr Johnson, however, was that more than one-third – 34 per cent – of people who voted Conservative in 2019 did not believe he could achieve his goal.

Focaldata polled a representative group of 1,512 people in mid-July, Hope Not Hate said.

Respondents were also split on what they thought “levelling up” actually meant, reflecting widespread uncertainty about the slogan. One-fifth (22 per cent) of them dared not venture a guess, so said they did not know how to define it.

Two-fifths (41 per cent) believed it meant the government would “bring more wealth to less affluent areas whilst not affecting wealthier areas”, while one-quarter (26 per cent) thought ministers might be planning to redistribute wealth from richer areas to poorer ones.

Those in the final group will be disappointed to learn that large chunks of development funding will in fact go to cabinet members’ “prosperous” constituencies, even though they were previously judged not to need it.

The areas include Rishi Sunak’s, Liz Truss’ and Stephen Barclay’s constituencies.

Wherever the money goes there will be less of it around than planned, as The Independent reported last week. In Mr Sunak’s Budget just £2.6bn was allocated to “tackle inequality and deprivation”, well short of the £4.5bn figure that would have been expected had the government kept its promise to match EU funding lost after Brexit.

Levelling up overall could take a decade, insiders warned at the Conservative Party conference in early October, adding that there “there will be some pain along the way”.

They told The Independent that “sweeteners” in the form of tax cuts would be needed to erase from voters’ minds the memories of high prices and squeezed incomes now beginning to plague the UK in the wake of Brexit and Covid-19.

Hope Not Hate’s new report, published today, also claimed to identify 52 council areas where the economic impact of coronavirus was likely to provoke a rise in far-right political activity and “community tension”. These included Liverpool, Leicester, Blackpool and Luton, the charity said.

Its head of policy, Rosie Carter, said in a statement: “To truly succeed in ‘levelling up’ and to fill the public with confidence in the government’s ability to create meaningful change, we need look beyond definitions of ‘levelling up’ which relate purely to economic infrastructure.

“We need the government to ‘build back resilient’ instead, by investing in integration and by supporting community groups, which strengthen community resilience but have been lost to years of austerity.”

A government spokesperson said: “Levelling up all corners of the UK is at the very heart of this government's agenda. We are empowering local leaders to seize their own destiny by funding projects that support social cohesion and tackle hate crime, enabling communities to thrive.

“Through the £4.8bn levelling up fund committed over the course of this parliament, we're investing in vital new infrastructure and public services across the UK to boost living standards, create jobs, help communities restore local pride and spread opportunities to all.”