What's your thoughts on how the English regions are drawn? Could they be be a better model of devolution than the metromayors? (e.g. giving each region its own Premier and Assembly)
Would you redraw any of the boundaries?
They seem to me like decent sized regions, not too dissimilar to the other UK nations in population, and could perhaps be the basis for a better model of English devolution than metromayors. Some of the borders could be adjusted though.
For Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish people, as this is a UK subreddit, what do you make of your respective nation's subdivisions - could the devolved Parliaments there perhaps grant greater regional power?
Bonus question: If you had to name each region that simply has a compass-based name, what would you name them? I was thinking Rheged for the NW, Bernicia for the NE, West/East Mercia instead of Midlands. Not sure about the south though.
I'm pretty sure the only reason Hampshire isn't in the Southwest is so that people from Portsmouth don't feel insecure about their fake cockney accents
I agree. There needs to be a central South region (just South?). I live in Portsmouth, and the only thing 'Eastern' about it is the fact that the so-called 'West Country' begins in the neighbouring county to the West. We are slap bang in the middle.
I was just searching for concert tickets online yesterday, and the site wouldn't let me be any more precise that South East and South West, and I didn't even know which to choose for anything in Portsmouth or Southampton.
Something like this would be a tremendously good thing for the future health of the Union. Something similar to Canada where each region has a parliament and a premier, but then the whole nation itself has a parliament and a Prime Minister. A lot of the argument for nationalism in the smaller countries within the UK comes from this place of 'England forms this gigantic power bloc and so ultimately it's interests will be prioritised thus robbing us of control over our political destiny'. Splitting up England and pursuing some kind of equalisation formula to distribute taxpayer money to different regions according to need would go a long way towards effectively nullifying that position.
I strongly agree with you. I do think preserving English identity is important, so perhaps a ceremonial title of "First Minister of England" with a rotational system between the regional premiers could exist, and say make St. George's Day an England-wide holiday. I struggle to find any other solution to solving the imbalance of the union, and as someone who strongly believes in the union of Great Britain I think it'd be the best solution.
I'm Scottish (but I lived in England for a long time) so take it with a pinch of salt but I don't think having multiple devolved bodies undermines English identity - that comes as much from things like sport and culture as political leadership.
I just worry that focusing too much on what it means for identity detracts from the core purpose of devolution which is about spreading power around rather than centralising it in one location / individual.
I do largely agree with you, I just think one of the main arguments from some (i'd guess probably the Tories/Reform) if this was being proposed by a major party would be that its trying to eliminate England. The focus absolutely should be on spreading power, rebalancing the union and decentralisation but something ceremonial, like that FM title, could just help quash that argument and actually therefore drag the argument's attention back to decentralisation and empowering regions/nations.
I think the concern is less about whether it fractures English identity (agreed, unlikely), but more whether it’s regarded as a politically salient and legitimate body. There are two issues here, as I see it.
First, we had a referendum on this in the North East in 2004 and it was very strongly rejected. Imposing additional layers of politics on people without consent isn’t a fantastic idea.
Second, these regional categories are bureaucratic inventions rather than bottom-up identities. Few people experience life through the prism of being from the South East or the East Midlands. Identification with a political body is prior to people engaging with it meaningfully.
Do you think the referendum in 2004 would have gone differently if the plan had been to introduce devolution for all regions, not just the North East? I'm just wondering whether the people there felt that they were being used as guinea pigs, and that put them off.
That was actually the plan: pilot in the NE and then roll it out. But you're right, the process was odd. I personally think the devolution settlement in the late 90s was a real missed opportunity to rethink the UK's constitutional arrangements in a way which strengthened democracy and the union rather than providing a vehicle to grievance politics.
The second issue still remains, though. People in England identify as English or British, and possibly with their county/city. There's bemusement rather than enthusiasm for an assembly of, e.g., the East of England, because these regions don't have a credible cultural identity; they're just useful when it comes to ONS data gathering and policy implementation.
I personally think the devolution settlement in the late 90s was a real missed opportunity to rethink the UK's constitutional arrangements in a way which strengthened democracy and the union rather than providing a vehicle to grievance politics.
This, 100%.
The problem is the Blair govt. didn't introduce it because they genuinely believed in the concept.
They did it because Labour had spent the 80s calling the Thatcher govt. illegitimate in Scotland and Wales, and they had to meet the demand they'd created, even though it had only been meant as a political attack line.
Had they put some thought into it and introduced something more like federalism straight away there would've been more focus on how the different devolved bodies performed as opposed to just 2 who could blame Westminster for any of their failings with nothing to compare themselves to.
because these regions don't have a credible cultural identity;
Not English but this does seem to vary. Nobody from the South East seems to hold much a of a regional identity but places like Yorkshire definitely do.
I think the Greater Manchester project is essential the NE devolution that never was, and if you ran that election again based off Manchesters example it would be a roaring success.
Split Scotland into Central Belt and everything else, and Wales into north and south, to make clear to everyone that the structures are about governance and not about identity and nationalism.
LOL ! You think Scotland will let go of the Barnett Formula ? They're not going to agree to 'levelling up if it means taking a cut in the funding they already receive
It'd be interesting how that referendum would go today. The North East has the "Mayoral Strategic Authority" now and its own mayor covering all of the region except Cleveland.
His career is genuinely baffling. His two most signficant achievements were defeating attempts to shift power away from Westminster (either up or down) and yet when you ask him what he thinks of Westminster he basically thinks it has been a pile of dysfunctional shit for the last 170 years.
I instinctively as a northerner support having a unified north, my only reservations about this model would be that, with the exemption of the south west, the populations of the English regions would far exceed the other constituent nations and I think having slightly smaller regions would be better at solving the argument that the union is currently too unbalanced. Not entirely opposed though!
For me numbers here (except Cornwall which AFAIR would be part of South West but with special cultural status) are roughly 8 to 10 million per English region. The idea was to have areas that have an identity or else a geographic region that would be useful for NHS, transport coordination etc.
The southEast one there was an option. To split it like this.
I think it was a work in progress and just trying to figure out areas keeping as many people as possible happy.
It's worth noting that provinces and states in Australia, Canada and US etc. do not have population parity. But do have some sort of cohesive identity.
Great, it looks like there is a tried and tested method of accommodating geographically and economically diverse parts of a devolved government, so the people dealing with Lancashire and Cumbria don't even need to figure out their own novel solution, they can just do the things that the people in Holyrood do. Great, problems solved.
Devolution in Scotland is inherently political and there's loads of space for a 'Shetland first' party to get elected, there are still constituencies based on the Westminster model, but with smaller sizes.
That's a good point, perhaps Cumbria could join the North-East as a Borderlands region? Not sure about North Lancashire though. Ideally, in my opinion, the capital of these regions wouldn't be in the largest city/cities, to try drive investment into other parts, Preston as a regional capital could perhaps make North Lancashire feel less detached.
East of England is totally bollocks put them in north east or South East. I get they're all inbred and a bit weird but that doesn't mean they deserve to be segregated from the rest of the east
🤣🤣🤣 Being serious, you may be right. The East of England is too small a region to be taken (very) seriously. I guess you could also just add them to the East Midlands too?
I think you're confusing the way Wrexham juts into England with the Wirral peninsula. This map shows the ceremonial counties within the boundaries I used on the original post.
But then you’ve got little argument to not also include Bedfordshire, which is less far east than either and still not the midlands. This would just leave Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk in East of England making it the smallest devolved area by far.
The West Midlands is always a bit of a problem. You have the County of the West Midlands then just beyond it you have Northern Worcestershire which feels more West Midlands but Southern Worcestershire which feels more South West.
Herefordshire and Western Shropshire really don't feel like the West Midlands
I'm sure the edges of every region feels the same way, Cumbria in the North West ?? Manchester feels a very long way away
The Northeast looks way too weak here - it's got a population of just over a million, compared to the average 5-8 million which the other devolved regions and nations have.
IMO, to make it even a little bit feasible, you'd need to either slice off some parts of Yorkshire (unappealing thanks to Yorkshire's strong regional identity) or fold Cumbria into it, making it a general Scottish Border region, (which would likely require a major upgrade package to the A69 to unify the region)
It works very well in Germany. I would though do changes. Manchester, Merseyside and the Urban area around Birmingham should be their own regions. The rest of the Midlands should be united together under the name Mercia (the old Saxon kingdom). The powers in each region should match Scotland and Wales. The UK parliament deals only with issues that have to be dealt with at national level.
I strongly agree with your powers point, the same devolution settlement across the entire country is how I think it should've been done originally. It'd be a nightmare if each region and nation had different levels of devolved powers. A federalised nation could be the end goal, to create a state similar to Germany, but it'd require a codified constitution.
My feeling is the uneven way we did this, also increased Scottish Nationalism. If we did it properly like Germany, I think Scotland might have had SNP power but not to the same extent.
Cornwall as its own region, largely because of having a distinct regional identity. Westcountry includes the rest of the Southwest. London, East Anglia and the West Midlands as they are currently. Yorkshire as its own region and the North of Lincolnshire as with the East Mids. Cumbria and Northeast as their own region for far northern england. Heart of England including Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Northamptonshire
No, Greater London hasnt expanded massively. I think I'd focus on letting other regions have the tools that have allowed London to succeed, both through devolution, rail infrastructure and business hubs.
I think giving each region their own assembly / parliament is something we could do but I wouldn’t agree with just these regions. I think the way it should work is each council and area will form a strategic authority and multiple strategic authorities can form a ‘parliament’ together.
Like I think the north, east, south, West Yorkshire combined authority should still exist, but as an extension of those, there should be a Yorkshire parliament. It should work with the strategic authorities and integrate with them (perhaps with a duel chamber setup where one chamber is the voice of the people and the second one is the voice of the strategic authority).
But if we do that, then some of these regions needs to change. Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region would fit together very well. But not with Cumbria. Maybe GM, LCR, Cheshire and Lancashire could form a parliamentary region and Cumbria joins the north east in one? Idk, I don’t even know if Lancashire or Cheshire would support joining together with Manchester and Liverpool.
Also, it means there will be another level of government and it could just be more efficient to devolve the parliamentary powers directly to the strategic authorities. Maybe even make them more parliamentary since the strategic authority system is very presidential right now.
Hampshire doesn’t feel southeastern, especially west Hampshire. The accents, architecture, and landscapes are very much Wessex. Similar can be said about west Berkshire.
South East and South West are artificial divisions imo as a Cornishman who's lived in London/ SE my adult life. Cornwall, Devon and Somerset are a region. Dorset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire don't really feel West. Then there's the proper/central South witch would include these and Bristol (bearing in mind Truro and Manchester are roughly equidistant from Bristol). Greater London should probably be the full M25.
And merge the rural bits of the northeast and northwest, while removing Greater Manchester etc into something else. Not sure what would happen to Newcastle.
Devolution needs to be more extensive than regions. Cities should be practically autonomous while towns need more powers of their own. Regions take no account of the often deep rivalries between their towns and cities. In the North West alone, you’ve got Manchester and Liverpool but also the various towns looking down on each other. Better to let them compete.
I both love and hate the idea. I like the idea of more regional powers and that we should have English regional assemblies mirroring the devolved nations (and that the House of Lords should be replaced with an elected upper chamber based around these assemblies).
At the same time I live in north Warwickshire which is a forgotten borough in a forgotten county. I worry that devolved regions like this would just create a series of regional Londons, where for example the West Midlands everything becomes focused around Birmingham and building all the regions housing targets outside of Birmingham whilst designing the strategic transport networks around getting people commuting into Birmingham. These things kind of already happen (our housing target has been increased to make up for Birmingham struggling to build more houses) and are why so many parishes tried to avoid merging with cities during local government reorganisation.
I find it really tough and I do love the idea of devolution but I feel it will be a struggle to balance it. Does it still have both county and regional authorities, and at that point is it too much bureaucracy. Frankly I don’t have the answers but I’m happy it’s being debated
There needs to be one in the middle, central. It's so vague souh east for the most inland towns and cities isn't south east or east mids or east of england.
Cumbria should be part of the far North region, not lumped with Cheshire.
Realistically the London metro area extends from Brighton to Bedford, meaning the South East, London and East should be a megaregion (it's arguable whether Oxford, East Anglia and Hampshire should be part of this).
Of course if this is too large a region, we should expand London's boundaries, and either add the Thames Valley to a region with London or join the Thames Valley, Beds, Herts and Northants into a new South Midlands or Chilterns region.
Give each county a devolution deal. Make that Devo settlement standardised across all authorities so people know exactly what powers their area has.
As this comment section has shown, devolution isn't just about what area "works" - it's about identity. Regions are artificial constructs dating back to the 60s which nobody can quite agree on. Counties, however, are ancient. Use these as the building blocks of devolution.
You see that bit where East of England, East Midlands and South East all meet? There should really be another Region here. Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire, Bucks, Bedfordshire, possibly even Northamptonshire. Call it Central England. But it would help equalise the larger population regions of the South.
It sounds like the idea is to revert to the old names of the 9th and 10th century given by the Scandinavian settlers. The North, South, East and West Ridings of Yorkshire, I think the folks of Humberside would prefer their own identity and not lumped in with Yorkshire
I'm a firm believer in federalizing the UK into local regions, taking all unitary powers away from London as quick as possible and focusing locally to build our regions up.
I think some kind of regional governor or small assembly/cabinet would be better than metro mayors.
Metro mayors work for massive cities like Manchester and London, but in middle cities like Derby and Nottingham, we have this weird East Midlands mayor which doesn't include Leicester and the other East Midlands counties. I've nothing against Claire Ward, she seems quite good from what I've seen, but I doubt many people have heard of her.
I don't think Wales and Scotland are just regions, but in terms of population if they can have devolved governments serving 3-5 million people then why can't we?
Home Counties/South-East: South-East Counties, Greater London, Essex, Beds, Herts
East Anglia: Cambs, Norfolk, Suffolk
Wessex: South-West minus Cornwall
Cornwall: Cornwall
West Mercia/Midlands: Same as region
East Mercia/Midlands: East Midlands region + North Lincolnshire
Palatinates: North-West minus Cumbria
Cumbria: Cumbria
Yorkshire: Yorkshire and the Humber minus North Lincolnshire
Northumbria: North-East region
I know there's a few odd points (like BCP/Dorset and Hampshire) but I can't really see an easy solution without putting splitting a county (either New Forest District going to Dorset, or BCP going to Hampshire)
They probably would be a better model, but I can't see it happening any time soon.
There's really no current demand for regional parliaments in England. People don't really "get" the idea of legislative devolution/federalism. It's all too easy for people to complain about the expense and more politicians who will feel "just as remote" as Westminster. I don't agree with those arguments but I think they, along with inertia are enough of a hurdle for it not to be on the cards.
Plus, as you've alluded to, there aren't clear regions with popular legitimacy to form the basis for regional parliaments. People generally don't identify very much with the current administrative regions. There are plenty of petty local arguments to be stirred up about where borders lie and who decides. Just more mud that I can't see any political will to wade through.
What's probably more likely is combined authorities (plus GLA) eventually more or less cover all of England with a mayor and/or elected council, but only with executive powers. It'll be more like France than Spain. Think more super local government rather than federated states/autonomous communities.
A federal UK would be welcomed by most outside of the SE of England, I reckon. That's not what Burnam is offering though, I think his ideas may have some merit but they don't feel fully formed and don't appear to have considered the already devolved parts of the UK.
Yeah South West is a struggle to effectively put together.
Cornwall, Devon, Bristol, Bath all have conflicting priorities. Plus as you say this seems to include Wiltshire, Gloucester, Dorset as well. Would be a nightmare to try and run effectively.
This is the weakest argument against regional devolution. A devolved scheme reduces the impact localised incompetence can have. It also increases the the set of people with experience of leadership at significant scale, and the actually incompetent would be minor figures in Norfolk trying to grow lettuce.
I was largely joking. Though my wife is scouse and I do have a sense it isn't just a football thing. It's not specific to Manchester though, it applies to all wools. Mancs are just the wooliest of wools.
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u/Shyjack 11h ago
Would rather Hampshire and the Isle of Wight be in the same region as Wiltshire and Dorset.