‘Only a radical economic transformation will work. But the Tories will never spearhead such a vision.’

Jon Trickett is the Labour MP for Hemsworth

Michael Gove, the MP for Surrey Heath, has now published the long-awaited and much-delayed Levelling Up White Paper.

Unfortunately, it is already clear that most of the “new” measures have already been announced last year by the Chancellor. But what got under my skin the most was when Mr Gove said that held back areas would become “places people are proud to live and work in.”

He clearly isn’t familiar with the area I live in. Neither are 63% of the 3,000 staff of his department, who are based in London. We are proud of being from Yorkshire, with our mining heritage and close community ties. I wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. When I talk to people it is very clear that one thing they are not proud of is a prime minister who holds parties whilst everyone else has to abide by lockdown rules he put in place.

Today, the government has published the detail.

Levelling up falls at the first hurdle

The first point to note, which Labour must repeat, is the government’s plans go nowhere near making up for the money they have taken off the north, including our local councils, since 2010. So, the idea of ‘Levelling Up’ falls at the first hurdle.

The announcement will not reverse or overcome the last few decades of deindustrialisation, nor will it tackle the fact that the financialisation of our economy actively sucks wealth, investment and opportunity out of held back areas.

Unfortunately, the measures included are at best a transactional policy strategy where held-back areas have to compete for previously announced money. At worst they are a cynical election strategy of triangulation which aims to retain the fifty or so seats the Tories won in so-called “Labour Heartlands.”

Deprived areas are being ignored

Research from my office suggests that 41 out of the 48 seats the Tories won from Labour in 2019 will be awarded finance from the Levelling Up Fund or Towns Fund. But areas like mine, which has the 4th worst social mobility in England, appears to be mostly ignored.

The only way to build lasting change is to not just rebalance the economy but restructure it so it delivers for all areas of the country.

Our economic system is based on deeply embedded wealth and privilege in the British state which ossifies class divisions. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, fewer than one in five children from Grimsby go to university and get degrees, compared to one in three children from London. And half of those will move away from the town by the age of 27. Often to London.

In my area, if you are born into poverty, you are likely to die in poverty because opportunities for social mobility are so few. Although education and skills are hugely important, we also need good jobs and therefore new industries.

Only a radical economic transformation will work. But the Tories will never spearhead such a vision.

No appetite for change

Firstly, there is no appetite to challenge the large accumulation of wealth by the richest in society, especially over the pandemic. The richest people in Britain increased their wealth by £538 billion since the financial crash of 2008 and corporate wealth went up by nearly £2 trillion.  Even under covid, the richest 250 increased their wealth by another £106.7 billion.

It is no surprise that it was reported that a third of billionaires on the Times Rich List have donated to the Tory Party. Over the past two decades, they have donated almost £62 million.

Tories are divided about levelling up  

Secondly, the Tory Party is divided about the levelling up agenda.

A section of the Tory Party believe that ‘Levelling Up’ means “levelling down” the loyal “blue wall” conservative seats in the South of England.

The agenda is also increasingly criticised by the “Northern Research Group” of Tory MPs. Led mainly by the former Northern Powerhouse Minister, Jake Berry, the group consists of many newly elected Tory MPs with seats in the North of England who want to defend their often small majorities. They don’t think the Levelling Up agenda goes far enough with the scrapping of the £20 Universal Credit uplift a key sticking point at present, leaving two thirds worse off.

Don’t be mistaken, the Southern Tories and the Northern Research Group are not united by their criticism of the Levelling Up agenda. Indeed, they represent two separate pools of thought within the Tory Party which have existed, uncomfortably, alongside each other for a long time.

In 2012, my report “The Conservative Dilemma”, identified the cleavage between “true blue Tories” and those newer MPs who represent non-traditional Tory seats and values.

The report rightly stated that “in order to win an outright majority in normal times the Tories now need to reach well beyond their historic base of traditional Conservative voters.” Under David Cameron, the Party tried to reach the socially minded middle class voters with appeals to Green policies and the “Big Society”. Boris Johnson, and Theresa May before him, shelved Cameron’s strategy, Brexit being one of the main reasons to do so. Some middle-class Tory Remainers realigned themselves with those championing the European Union, even if that meant compromising on social justice and the climate.

Instead, the Tory election strategists want to retain their new voters in working class communities. However, as we are seeing, it is no easy feat to keep your base of true-blue Tories happy at the same time.

Southern Tories are nervous

The Lib Dems’ strategy to target “blue wall” seats, where they are second to the Tories, is clearly making some southern Tories nervous, and perhaps rightly so, as the Chesham and Amersham by-election exemplified.

Boris Johnson has attempted to quell the cries of dissent in his backbenches by softening the rhetoric on Levelling Up. In a speech in July last year, the Prime Minister had a message for those in the South East and London:

“Levelling up is not a jam-spreading operation, it’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul, it’s not zero sum it’s win win for the whole United Kingdom”.

But there is also a challenge for Labour.

Despite “Levelling Up” being “two words with nothing behind them” as Keir Starmer has said, the Tories have tapped into something which sections of the left have been trying to convince Labour leaders of for years; that the Party has repeatedly ignored the concerns of working-class communities.

We need to champion working-class communities

At the same time as opposing the Tories and holding their claims to account, we need to champion the people at the core of our Party’s values: working class communities.

If Labour fails to face up to this challenge electoral oblivion awaits us. We simply cannot keep heeding the now infamous Mandelsonian phrase that working class voters “have nowhere else to go”. They do. And many of them have already gone.

To do this we must set out a bold, radical vision for post-Brexit, post-Covid Britain. One which does not tinker round the edges nor one which regurgitates the old ideas and strategies of the Labour right.

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