WELSH Labour leader Mark Drakeford has suggested that the UK Labour Party should promote local identities as part of its work to engage with the public. 

The connection between geographic identities and political affiliation had perhaps been noticed a bit earlier in Wales, Drakeford said at an event marking 100 years since Labour won the popular vote in Wales. 

He also suggested Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham was making progress in linking people’s identification with Manchester with Labour values. 

I welcome his comments generally and think these topics are well worth exploring.

The public identify with communities, localities, regions and nations, and with concepts such as sovereignty and control.

Conversations about geographic issues can lead to conversations about power, decision-making and class politics.

Geographic, territorial justice requires class and economic justice. Britain’s north-south divide has illustrated this for decades.

Morning Star editor Ben Chacko reported on June 18 how progressive federalism and regional questions have been raised at recent AGMs of the People’s Press Printing Society, the co-op which runs the newspaper. Hopefully the Star can help develop the conversation on ideas for a future federal Britain.

Discussions on British regional and national issues are also under way in the Communist Party of Britain’s new progressive federalism commission. 

It was launched to develop ideas and public support for a federal Britain with new democratic arrangements between England, Scotland and Wales.

It followed the publication of a party pamphlet on post-Brexit Britain, entitled Johnson’s Post-EU Britain or Progressive Federalism?

By coincidence, members of the Spanish Communist Party, the PCE, living in Britain have recently been promoting a similar discussion about a future “plurinational” federal arrangement between Spain, Catalonia and the Basque country, based on consent and democracy rather than outdated, unfair systems and force.

Likewise, the aim of Communist Party of Britain’s new progressive federalism commission is to build a fairer, federal Britain where sovereignty — democratic decision-making and economic powers to intervene on the public’s behalf — genuinely lies with the people and is distributed fairly nationally and regionally for the benefit of ordinary people.

There have been many developments in Britain — Scotland, Wales and England — in recent years which illustrate important regional and national questions.

Examples include Brexit, the Scottish and Welsh parliaments which include some elements of proportional representation and votes for 16-year-olds, English devolution deals, regional combined authorities and regional elected mayors. We also seeing reform of English district and county councils, such as Cumbria and North Yorkshire. 

However, these many developments have been inconsistent and there are various democratic deficits.

Different governments, left and right, and different movements have shaped these events at different times. And the change is ongoing.

In Westminster regional development changes, we have seen the ending of the old regional development agencies, the comings and goings of regional development corporations, the launch of local enterprise partnerships, the “Northern Powerhouse” project, freeports, town deals, levelling up etc.

But one of the common characteristics of these has been the lack of public participation. Overwhelmingly, these have been projects focused on regional business communities and some regional politicians.

The general public may have been aware of the big landmark ideas or developments — successes or failures — but the public have been spectators rather than participants and decision-makers.

Some developments over the past 20 or 30 years may seem profound. Others may seem trivial, constitutionally “dry,” bureaucratic, undemocratic or a distraction to the “urgent issues.”

But I believe everyone interested in progressive politics needs to understand what has happened, regardless of whether they agree or not, so they can then engage the public to explore better solutions. 

In particular, I believe the English left needs to be well aware of all these developments and to engage with them confidently. 

Importantly, the left needs to link these sometimes confusing developments to people’s everyday lives, experiences and struggles, to community, geographic and class identities.

Hope and optimism are needed too. How can progressive federalism boost political participation and help put decision-making powers into localities and regions?  

If the mainstream English left doesn’t enter this conversation, other movements will. Recent years have seen the rise of new regional political parties and movements, such as the Yorkshire Party and North-East Party.

In the West Yorkshire mayor elections of 2021, the Yorkshire Party gained 58,000 votes. There are also a number of smaller ultra-local parties in north-west England across Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Cumbria. 

By not promoting local, regional and national democratic, economic intervention and sovereignty discussions and proposals, the English left risks allowing the political right to set the agenda about post-Brexit Britain and the right to be perceived as being innovative in regional change. 

The current Westminster government is regularly making headlines about levelling-up, town fund deals, devolution deals and regional freeports. But what does the left propose?

The left needs to promote positive ideas about national and regional change which can engage with people’s community and geographic identities and connect with the politically disillusioned.

National and regional characteristics and identities are not set in stone. These change over time, reflecting the dominant political, economic and social forces of different eras.

Progressives in England need to get to grips with these developments and also create engaging new proposals for a federal Britain.