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How Boris Johnson can be an example to Europe


Prime minister Boris Johnson’s vow to “level up” the UK is intended to focus the public on a positive agenda, draw attention away from Brexit, and save the Conservative party from what one of his predecessors bemoaned as its tendency to “bang on about Europe”.

The paradox is that his challenge — to overcome regional inequality — is one he shares with every other country in Europe, and beyond.

The malaise in non-metropolitan Britain played a big role in giving the Leave side a majority in the 2016 Brexit referendum, as well as in last month’s election victory for Mr Johnson, who was seen by enough voters in struggling places as their best hope. With an eye for political opportunity, he stole a march on the other parties by offering hope to the hopeless in exactly the right places, which is to say the worst places — those that have suffered the most decline amid decades of growth for the leading cities.

Britain’s regional inequality is extreme but very far from unique in Europe. Virtually every European country, not to mention the US, is belatedly waking up to decades of failure by mainstream politicians to maintain an economic model that spreads prosperity across entire national territories.

Economic historians who have carefully reconstructed gross domestic product estimates for nearly 200 subnational regions across western Europe going back a century have documented that, for most of the 20th century, regional inequality was narrowing. From the 1980s, however, this convergence stopped and partly went into reverse. Already-rich capital regions, in particular, have been pulling away from their poorer hinterlands. A similar trend can be seen in the US.

So London’s growing economic dominance in the UK economy is just a particularly egregious case of a pan-western phenomenon. If Mr Johnson is right that the UK needs “levelling up” then so does virtually every other mature economy. This means we should expect other countries’ politicians to succeed electorally by replicating Mr Johnson’s strategy. In terms of policy, his success or failure to level up the UK’s regions will be scrutinised at least as closely from continental Europe as at home. Conversely, he would do well to scour other countries’ experience of what works and what does not.

He could start right across the English channel. The French government’s Council of Economic Analysis has just published research on the underlying causes of the gilets jaunes protests. The similarities with “left-behind” Brexit Britain are striking.

First, participation in the protests is linked to other signs of dissatisfaction, such as a lower voter turnout and worse self-reported indicators of wellbeing. Second, these unhappy communities are economically unsuccessful, as seen in weaker job growth or lower house prices.

But one of the most fascinating indicators of disaffection is the disappearance of local shops, cultural amenities and public services. Vindicating Honoré de Balzac’s 1840 praise for the local grocer as “the strongest of social links”, the researchers found that French communities that have lost their last convenience shop are three times more likely to have experienced a gilets jaunes event.

This should sound familiar. Beyond the statistics, economic decline is very often experienced in real life through boarded-up high streets and the loss of social meeting places. The proof of any policy to improve regional inequality, then, must be measured not just in individual living standards but in community cohesion. The French study, for example, finds that individual anxiety varies with the average income in the community: local economic improvement makes people feel better, even if their own financial situation is unchanged.

Instead of asking whether the roots of political disaffection are economic or cultural (a backlash against immigration or liberal values, for instance), we should understand how economic conditions sustain local cultures — or fail to do so. Huge out-of-town shopping centres and centralised healthcare amenities may be most efficient when measured narrowly, but perhaps less so when the full cost of a lost grocer, library or pharmacy are taken into account.

Mr Johnson has taken the first step in this process, by grasping the depth of despair and articulating it. But the next step — delivering on the promise — is much harder. As the French study makes clear, it requires not just shaking up the way policy is assessed but also how it is implemented. Local communities need a role in shaping it, something the hypercentralised UK is particularly ill-suited to manage.

Populists have an advantage in that they feel no compunction to deliver on their promises. If Mr Johnson shows other politicians it is possible to do so, he will have performed a great public service.

martin.sandbu@ft.com



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