The limits of devolution for the left

Localism's threat to egalitarianism and national renewal In a recent Guardian interview, the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, acknowledged that the Labour party historically had been divided between devolutionists and centralisers, "but now the whole of the shadow cabinet supports the devolution agenda".1 Streeting went on to say that the purpose of a Labour government was to "win power to give it away". This is a curious perspective. It surely matters to whom that power is given away. If Labour governments are elected, only to give power away to their political opponents – Conservatives, separatist parties and others – is localism always better for the people whom Labour is meant to serve? "This is a curious perspective" The mission of a Labour government is to create a more equal society and to improve the condition of the working class. This article argues that the devolution agenda could operate contrary to those key objectives by empowering forces that work against the common good and by inhibiting the ability of a Labour government to pass transformative and redistributive national policy. Historically, as Streeting acknowledged, the Labour party contained within it many sceptics of policy decentralisation. The ability of a House Commons majority to deliver radical, transformative change across the whole of the UK was one of the bedrock constitutional objectives of working-class reformers for decades. The British constitution offers the opportunity, rarely matched anywhere in the world, for a democratic socialist party to govern as a majority and to use that power to transform society with few legal impediments.2 Should a government wish to nationalise industry, the banks or hospitals, a simple majority in the lower chamber of parliament should suffice. "It is insufficiently positive in character; it does not provide sufficient rapidity of action; it inhibits the necessary standards of uniformity; it relies upon compacts and compromises which take insufficient account of the urgent category of time; it leaves backward areas a restraint, at once parasitic and poisonous, on those which seek to move forward."3 First, decentralisation makes it harder to govern. The political scientist, William Riker, warned that decentralised politics was "unnecessarily and appallingly destructive of efficient government".4 National policy change becomes contingent on bargains struck with numerous local powerbrokers. Take, for example, the challenges Barack Obama faced in expanding Medicaid – public health insurance – to working-class families. Because healthcare is technically a state-level policy competence, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not force states to expand public healthcare, in spite of Congress passing legislation and allocating funding to do so.5 More recently, Republican governors in 15 states have opted out of Joe Biden's expansion of subsidised meals for school children during school holidays.6 Policy decentralisation makes it difficult for parties to deliver the change for which they campaign, which weakens trust in democracy. Failing to pass nationally transformative legislation in fragmented polities inevitably advantages the already advantaged. It is a status-quo favouring system. Laski warned that the sclerotic features of decentralisation were dangerous to democracy, "especially in an age of crisis", because they deprived "the drama of positive achievement democracy needs to retain its faith". The project of national economic transformation required a national response. "Failing to pass nationally transformative legislation in fragmented polities inevitably advantages the already advantaged" Second, subnational jurisdictions are more easily captured by powerful local economic interests. Most evidence shows that, even in strongly decentralised systems, citizens tend to participate more in their national elections than subnational ones. Even in Scotland and Wales, turnout to elect Westminster MPs always surpasses the turnout to elect members of the devolved parliaments who make more decisions over those voters' day-to-day lives. Turnout for the London and Manchester mayoral elections, arguably the most prominent non-Westminster postings in English politics, has never reached even 50 per cent. In May 2017, turnout was a paltry 29 per cent in the Manchester mayoral election, yet 69 per cent of voters turned out to vote a month later in the UK general election. In the UK, the problem of narrow vested interests operating against the common good can most clearly be seen in the context of housing and infrastructure. Time and again, local councillors feel enormous pressure from local activists to oppose housing projects. Such localism is crippling the UK, leaving it with increasingly outdated and inappropriate infrastructure. The absurd costs of the vital High Speed 2 (HS2) rail project are in no small part due to the objections of 'local people' against the idea of a rail track passing through the countryside and destroying their views, forcing many miles of the project to be constructed underground unnecessarily.7 The much-needed Oxford to Cambridge East–West Rail link, which would run through Milton Keynes and Bedford, has been stalled due to objections by some property owners in Bedford who are concerned about the impact of a new rail line on their property prices.8 This is made worse by the fact that the people most likely to participate in local democracy tend to be older, more middle class and wealthier. Local landholders, employers and the sharp-elbowed middle classes more easily dominate localised politics. Thus, devolution involves the transfer of power away from wide, general interests to the local, vested interests, who militate against the common good. Laski observed that some US states had been 'captured' by powerful local economic interests: "Delaware is merely a pseudonym of the du Ponts and Montana little more than a symbol of the Anaconda Copper Corporation."9 Third, devolving policy competences to subnational units can lead to a race to the bottom. Historically, many British socialists believed that coordinated action was required to overcome the ills of capitalism. Collective bargaining, a national health service, a national welfare state, national infrastructure and nationalised industries were the most powerful and democratic response. In decentralised polities, capital exploits different subnational policy regimes. Employers threaten subnational legislatures with 'flight' unless they can be provided with a sweet deal. For example, various car manufacturers relocated their operations from Michigan, which had high workplace standards, a good minimum wage and strong trade union rights, to southern states like Tennessee, which lacked those social protections. In time, subnational units become bullied into reducing workers' protections in order to maintain employment.10 "In time, subnational units become bullied into reducing workers' protections in order to maintain employment" Fourth, devolution, to quote the political scientist, Aaron Wildavsky, "means inequality".11 It obviously does, or there would be very little point to it otherwise. Decentralised arrangements are predicated on the idea that local areas should have control over their own resources. In practice, this means that wealth stays in rich areas; poverty stays in poor areas. Jamila Michener, a professor at Cornell University who specialises in federalism and inequality, has shown the shocking variation in healthcare provision for poor Americans thanks to the fragmentation of Medicaid policy between different state governments.12 A 'geography of opportunity' is created, where Americans lucky enough to be born in a state with a more generous welfare regime will have longer and more prosperous lives than those whose births happened to fall on the wrong side of a state border. Left-of-centre defenders of devolution argue that devolved politics can still be redistributive, but this is politically naïve. Wealthy areas will jealously guard their resources, and the project of devolution erodes the solidarity that is necessary for redistribution to work. Even systems that demand redistribution as a constitutional imperative, like Germany, have run into serious political problems. There is resentment in parts of Germany over redistribution from wealthy länder to those that are seen as 'undeserving'.13 When he was Labour leader, Neil Kinnock recognised this political problem when he warned that "devolution introduces demarcations and will provoke divisions which will fracture the solidarity necessary for socialist and trade union progress".14 Fifth, and relatedly, devolution encourages a politics of difference. Rather than a politics of national renewal, devolution sets the stage for a politics of local grievance. Local politicians look for ways to differentiate themselves from the rest of the country in order to justify their own continuation in power. We saw this during the Covid-19 pandemic when the devolved governments, wishing not to be seen as 'following' Westminster, would vary their policy response slightly, sometimes by extending lockdowns by just a matter of days or hours. These gestures are hardly beneficial to the core purposes of government. No one benefits from Scotland's decision to hold its census on a different year than the rest of the UK, other than it demonstrates to the Scottish public that the Scottish government can do something different to Westminster, even though the different timings produce disjointed outcomes and lower engagement.15 "Rather than a politics of national renewal, devolution sets the stage for a politics of local grievance Finally, it is often said that devolution is more 'democratic', but one of the problems of devolution is that it inevitably increases the power of unelected actors, namely judges. In many decentralised polities, a codified constitution usually set out these boundaries of national and subnational policy competences, but even the best-drafted constitutions struggle to delineate them perfectly. The inevitable resulting conflicts between national and subnational units are almost always arbitrated by courts. Federal systems tend to be much more judicially active systems. In recent years, Labour has taken a broadly uncritical approach to devolution, which sees local as always better, but this is because decentralisation has been targeted to Labour-friendly areas like London, Wales and large cities. Given the counter-cyclical nature of local and national politics, Labour in power in Westminster would likely correspond with huge Labour losses in local government. And, then, what would Labour's response be if, as a result of further devolution, regional governments start to charge residents for using NHS services? Or, very likely, what would happen when 'local people' refuse to deliver badly needed housing, to obey infrastructure targets or to accept immigrants and asylum seekers into their areas? "Labour in power in Westminster would likely correspond with huge Labour losses in local government" It is odd that Labour would become the champion for an arrangement that would fragment the welfare state. Yes, devolution creates space for policy experimentation but, as we see in other decentralised systems, it does so at the expense of universalism. Localism does not always serve the greater good of the country. Local control can be a more elite form of control. When devolved units are given more power, including to opt out of the welfare state and from their wider obligations to their fellow citizens, people in poverty more often than not are the losers. Richard Johnson is senior lecturer in US politics at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of books on US and UK politics, including The End of the Second Reconstruction: Obama, Trump, and the crisis of civil rights (Polity, 2020) and (with Mark Garnett and Gavin Hyman) Keeping the Red Flag Flying: The Labour party in opposition since 1922 (Polity, 2024). He is the editor (with Yuan Yi Zhu) of Sceptical Perspectives on the Changing Constitution of the United Kingdom (Hart, 2023).