“A free Northumbria and fairer North for all”: the Northern Independence Party commences its journey
We have been charting the rise of regional English autonomy at A/UK for quite a while - see the many contributions from the Same Skies Collective, and our mapping of Yorkshire radicalism (whether party-political, localist or otherwise).
It seems obvious to many that, post the devolutions of Scotland and Wales, there should be some kind of federal structure responding to England’s huge regional diversity.
The question has always been: will the demand from below pull reformism from the top? (Referendums were held for regional assemblies in the early New Labour years, but the vote was No).
Well, here’s an unavoidable and rollicking demand, carried in the pages of the left-wing magazine Red Pepper, for an “independent Northumbria.” And they’re not kidding about independence - they are aiming, like the Scottish independence movement, for a legal referendum and a resounding Yes to Northern statehood.
Their “Free North” includes “Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Durham, Northumberland and Cheshire… all distinct lands with long histories and strong cultural identities”, comprising 15 million people.
They are also impeccably civic in their self-definition:
Our fledgling country is home to the children of Irish migrants, Romani folk, Europeans from the continent and more recent migrants coming from India and Jamaica, among others. Our beautiful diversity is nonetheless often ignored, shrouded by a St George’s Flag – a symbol for obnoxious racism and a fictitious ‘white North’.
Their reasons for independence are, by turns, constitutional:
The impoverishment of the North and areas in other metropoles was driven by capitalism and accelerated under neoliberalism. NIP’s understanding of deprivation, however, is greater than just empty wallets. Poverty has a Northern texture, where public transport is patchy, expensive and infrequent, museums and art galleries few and far between, libraries are closed and town centres have become ghost towns. Poverty is always something lived – not only measured.
Despite intermittent campaigns, the UK has never federalised. Instead, Westminster has kept all the power and wealth for itself. We live in one of the most centralised and regionally unequal countries in Europe, we have no written constitution and our voting system is archaic and unrepresentative. Is it any wonder that so many of us are disillusioned?
And then economic, for an “economy roughly the size of Sweden”:
Not only is the UK the most unequal country in Europe, some of the most impoverished areas in Europe are in the North of England. Yet not only do we have some of the largest cities on this island, we’re rich in resources from minerals to water. Vast amounts of trade comes into our ports through the Irish and North Seas, as well as along our roads.
And we’re home to some of the world’s leading companies. On current measures, our GDP per capita ought to place Northumbria just below Japan at 35,539 (USD).
Yet, somehow, we continue to endure low life expectancies, terrible welfare statistics, low educational achievements and a worsening mental health crisis. The North remains the most deprived region in what is currently called ‘England’, and this didn’t happen by chance.
Northern impoverishment is instead the product of an ongoing plundering of Northumbria – a never-ending harrying of the North – that exploits the many for the enrichment of the few.
We don’t want to level up; we want to level out. Economic independence will mean we can implement economic democracy. The North will take control of its assets and enable common ownership over the wealth they produce.
Just as we are rich in wind and tidal power, we also have the industrial know-how to decarbonise our economy fully. This will see us capture the entire Green-tech supply-chain, employing hundreds and thousands in the process.
We will fully insulate our homes and our power supply will be entirely renewable. Our movement’s friends in Scotland have already made plans on how to make that vision a reality. We will partner with them to extend those benefits to ourselves.
There are constant echos and muffled referents to Scottish independence rhetoric:
Northumbrians are not inherently incapable, and poverty is not inevitable. Our current economic malaise is the result of profound structural injustices that allowed segments of London and the South East to function as a black hole, pulling everything into their centre and gobbling it up – from investment opportunities to our best and brightest.
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It would be safe to say that this is a provocation, as much as a serious proposal. And as the embedded tweet shows, its founder is certainly trying to capitalise on the recent spectacle of resistance presented by Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham.
And does it really answer current healthy trends towards “community power” and a hands-on localism, establishing a new nation-state comparable to Sweden or Japan?
One might also wish for some detail on how a Northumbrian state might itself pursue subsidiarity within itself. Will the Free North itself be federal and fractal enough - or is this the “directive state” of Corbyn Labour come back in through a side door?
There’s also the small spectre of the Italian Northern League hanging over this - though their politics was rooted in being too prosperous to be connected to the poor Italian South, the inverse of the NIP appeal.
These islands are morphing wildly at the moment. Will the British State buckle and break under the strain, or do one of its classic adapt-and-survive manoeuvres? Initiatives like this may seem eccentric - but any more than UKIP’s vision of a Britain out of Europe did two decades ago? With A/UK’s eye always on the question of what collective forms are the most expressive of people’s power and agency, we watch this space.
Here’s the full Red Pepper piece. You can follow the Northern Independence Party at @FreeNorthNow