Democracy in danger

Regionalism is still creeping on. We thought that we had defeated it in referendums a year or two back, but the animal is still alive and kicking. Indeed, with the government making “goodies”, i.e. generous funds, available through bodies on a regional basis, there is a momentum building up again.

The West Midlands Regional Assembly, which does little except to interfere, is to have its annual assembly next month. What is the point of this body? How much is it still costing?

Amalgamation of just about every major service on regional basis has occurred – Fire, Ambulance, Health Service, and almost of the police but for a rearguard action. All government departments seem to be regionalised, as well as still controlled from Whitehall.

Culture, sport, higher education, environment agency, and the probation service are among a long list of quangos financed by Government (Taxpayer) with regional offices.

Why is the pressure building for more regionalisation? Leaving aside weak arguments about bigger being better, which are seldom true of personal services in the community, there appear to be two main promoters:

1) The European Union makes no attempt to conceal its preference for regional government, and regularly produces maps showing only three countries in Britain, - Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. England no longer exists as a country. Instead it is in nine parts, or regions.

Quite why the EU has this emphasis we can only guess. Perhaps it is partly to break down into smaller regions, to reduce the power of nationalism and ease the eventual complete control of the Union, or whatever it is called at that point.

2) The resent Government, noting that they have more support in urban areas and very little in rural areas, can achieve more control by combining the more thinly populated Conservative voting areas with the urban areas with their larger populations.

If there is any truth in these, and I suspect there is, all it requires is to offer incentives and inducements. Telford, for instance wanted to join the city region running from Coventry, perhaps 60 miles away, to Telford. The administration would probably centre on Birmingham, very remote for Shropshire people, but who cares so long as Telford can jump on the gravy train. (There are more glaring examples, though perhaps not with City Region inducement. The proposed South West region would extend from Land’s End to the Midlands border – perhaps 90 miles, so wherever the administrative centre is located it will be utterly remote for many people.

All this, and the West Lothian Question, possibly underlie the recent upsurge in English awareness and nationalism. We should be concerned that control and accountability is becoming more and more remote, that electors will find it increasingly difficult to escape unpleasant policies and taxes by removing to another authority, and ultimately that only a lip service is being paid to democracy and local provision. (It has to be noted that the LibDems seem to have gone cool on regionalism recently. Are they no longer proponents?) If so, it would seem that all this is being done by small, undemocratic groups. This is even more worrying.