As part of the nebulous “leveling up” of non-London areas of England that is central to Boris Johnson’s Build Back Better plan, Michael Gove, the resident always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride of internal Conservative Party (Tory) politics, is mulling importing American-style local government. The plan, according to the British newspapers, is to devolve some of the British Parliament’s (in Westminster) powers to counties, cities, etc. The problem is that many of these divisions are too small to do what Gove wants and areas of England that strongly take on governance may be cut down by Westminster if they do it in a way the central government disagrees with.
Counties are Confusing and Small
Map Men have a great video on the quagmire of English counties. You should watch it.
The too long; didn’t watch is there are three or more versions of an English county map that exist. They have the same names for counties but have differing borders. In some of these, older traditional subdivisions of England, such as Yorkshire or Sussex, do not exist. Older counties were split regularly in the past and may not reflect today’s divisions.
It is uncertain which ones Gove and Johnson want to use for governance. My guess is that it is the 48 Ceremonial Counties since Gove wants to model these governments off of the Greater London Authority and Greater London exists in that version of the counties.
One of the things that come to mind is how small some of the counties are. Rutland, for example, only has 39,697 people. Gove’s proposal is for areas of 500,000 residents or more, but I think that is too small of a population to be effective. Thinking of the United States, where Gove seems to be cribbing his ideas from, most states have 1 million to 10 million people in them. You need a fairly large pool of people to have a sufficient tax base to fund the full range of services and users of services to make them efficient. Using that bar, the areas in red have a high enough population.
There is a grouping around London, Devon, and a grouping in the North/Northern Midlands of England.
Because of all this, I think that counties should not be used as the backbone of any devolution proposal.
Getting GLC’ed
The Greater London Authority, the level of government that the Mayor of London is in charge of, was founded in 2000. This was not the first time that Greater London had a government. From 1888 to 1965 there was the London County Council which was succeeded by the Greater London Council (the GLC) from 1965 to 1986.
From 1981 to 1986, the GLC was headed by hard-left Labor member Ken Livingstone who clashed with Margret Thacher’s government. Livingstone was, among other things, a Marxist and supporter of Irish Republicanism. He would later be expelled from the labour party for antisemitism. Much to Thacher’s dislike, Livingstone did a variety of left-leaning things such as: reducing the fares on the London Underground, no longer spending money to prepare for nuclear war with the USSR, started spending money to support minority community groups, and generally being a thorn in Thacher’s side. He also used the County Building, across the river from Parliament, to display anti-Thacher slogans. For this, Thacher abolished the GLC.
The GLC shows the downside of devolution in a country with Parliamentary Supremacy. It only lasts as long as Westminster allows it to. If a left-wing government comes into power in the next London Assembly and starts enacting the policies that their voters asked for, the only thing that is stopping a Tory government from abolishing the Greater London Authority like it did in 1986 to the GLC is shame.
Critics would point out that, the Scottish Parliament (in Holyrood) has the same amount of protection that the GLC did in 1986, and the Scottish National Party (SNP)-lead government is taking special joy in being a thorn in Johnson’s side. Theoretically, Westminster could abolish Holyrood and take back its powers. This isn’t going to happen because it is likely that the SNP would use it as an excuse to declare Scotland independent, have massive electoral fallout, and potentially trigger Troubles 2.0: Electric Boogaloo. The Greater London Authority and any new devolved government in England do probably not have that card in their hand when dealing with Westminster.
Presidental systems are worse than parliamentary ones
One of America’s worst exports is our presidential system of government. Countries with a presidential system of governance have higher amounts of corruption, have more gridlock, transform politics into a zero-sum game, allow the executive and legislative branches to pass the buck back and forth and never take the blame for policy failures, and lead to a stale two-party system. Local governments have less attention by the press and public and therefore are more likely to have problems with corruption and be controlled by a minority interest.
Yes, the semi-Presidental Mayoral system is working well enough, but I am very confused as to why Gove wants to make everywhere in England have it. The parliamentary system of government has worked since the House of Commons was established in 1341. It is one of the longest-lasting democratic systems in the world, and I regard it as a Chesterton's Fence. There needs to be a very good reason to abandon it for American-style governments.
Regional Parliaments?
An idea that I have been kicking around is regional parliaments for England. It would be more stable and accountable to voters than a mini-presidental republic. If given all of the powers of the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Senedd you would also solve the open West Lothian question, which would be nice.
These regions should probably be somewhere between the size of Scotland (5.5 million) to the size of Greater London (8 million). These areas would be populous enough to support the full array of services with a wide enough electorate to have differing opinions. You could imagine Yorkshire or the
These regions would still have the sword of getting GLC’ed hanging above them, but a Yorkshire Parliament would probably have a decent chunk of local support built-in. Which would make abolishing it a bit more difficult and increase the chance of it lasting.