Burnham at the Stake: The Dangers of Decentralizing Britain

Devolving power for its own sake will only lead to inefficency

Image credit: Jasper Langley-Hawthorne

“A pair of eyelashes and a black T-shirt.”

Thus was the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Andy Burnham, referred to indignantly by MP Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party. While I usually dislike both conservatives and objectification, Badenoch’s poetic blazon of Burnham is apt. His policies may appear attractive, but are inherently disconnected from each other. Burnham has made the decentralization of political power one of his highest priorities over the few months that he has been in the global spotlight. Devolution may look good on paper, but in practice, it is at odds with how government in the United Kingdom functions in reality. 

It is true that some regard devolution as a revolutionary policy that could revitalize the stagnant British system where so much is decided at Westminster. Those of us across the pond may even be tempted to use this proposal as a way to think about America’s difficulty in balancing federal and state power. But this temptation, just like the allure of a pair of eyelashes and a black T-shirt, ought to be resisted. 

First, even in Britain, Burnhamism will likely fail. Taking power from a central government and giving it to nebulously-defined “regions” like Greater Manchester, is an affront to already-devolved political communities and structures. Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish governments have responded to Burnham’s ascendancy accordingly, calling for the breakup of the United Kingdom and re-entry of those constituent countries into the European Union. A proposal to take control from Westminster, to which Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish voters send Members of Parliament, and give it to positions like the mayoralties of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region, clearly dilutes the influence of the average voter outside of England in favor of voters within it. The United Kingdom is already an uneasy union; Burnham’s fixation on devolving power is, in actuality, easily conceived of as disempowering. 

Similar discord occurs in the United States, where a complex hierarchy of city, county, and state governments all vie for powers in which the federal government has decided it has little interest in. Just think about any fight in any state with a housing crisis. State legislatures and governors have almost universally pressured local and municipal governments into building more housing. In some rare cases, cities cooperate, and the result is puppies and sunshine and rainbows. 

Most of the time, we unfortunately find ourselves stuck in a situation where everyone understands the general need to build housing, but no one actually bothers supporting local proposals to do so. Congress, understandably, does not usually try to get involved in this quagmire. If the federal government were to delegate even more power to local governments (as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act does), this would not only be a natural consequence of the discord between different levels of subnational government, but also perhaps provide more fuel for said discord. Sectional crisis will forever be a looming threat in the U.K.; it is better to address the problems which fuel sectarianism rather than give power to the sectarians.  

In fact, looking back to the U.K., the issue of housing will inevitably cause problems for Andy Burnham. On the one hand, he is a firm advocate of expanding social housing to address the present supply shortage. But on the other, he wants to give local mayors more authority over what gets built in their regions. Though he argues that this will give mayors the power to override councils, he has also conceded that anti-housing mayors could use this to stymie housing development. 

As mentioned previously, Burnham also has more ostentatious plans. He is engaged in the woefully frivolous gimmick of moving certain essential central government functions from London to Manchester, a project he dubs, “Number 10 North.” I give this project a zero out of ten. Number 10 North not only solves zero real problems, but also, if it ever happens, is likely to become an expensive problem in itself.

Recall the European Parliament’s semiannual move from Brussels to Strasbourg and back again, a >$100M boondoggle that is impossible to ditch because Belgium and France will veto any change. Any project of devolution from a federal government to smaller political communities, be they cities, regions, or states, will have to choose between overriding the wishes of those constituent entities or accepting certain inefficiencies. In the case of a project like Number 10 North, the already limited value of the endeavor is sure to be outweighed by costly inefficiencies. 

Burnham’s push for devolution seems to be an attempt to empower the people of the United Kingdom via their local governments. Unfortunately, local governments are just as prey to the infighting and inefficiency that national governments are, just on a pettier scale. 

It is especially important to remember that the U.K. lacks a uniform system of administration for local governments. Many inefficiencies are structural, resulting from divides between tiers of government and within regions. It is true that local governments ought to have more funding in order to provide better services; however, granting power to an already inefficient system is not the same as reforming said system. Giving away power irresponsibly is an irresponsible use of power. 

If you wish for greater autonomy for local governments, simply grant them that autonomy. But that must come with the recognition that it will likely make broader planning less effective and result in worse overall outcomes. Burnham’s project will not succeed without compromising on some ideal—especially because some arrangement must happen rather quickly to satisfy Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. 

And thus Burnham’s proposals for decentralization will erode—a compromise here, a bandaid there, all in service of no real policy outcome save for decentralization. This would be a poor template for the United States, a much larger country, that would have to deal with much larger issues were the “devolution agenda” to be so ham-handedly transferred here across the Atlantic. 

What does looking at Burnham’s agenda teach us members of former British colonies? Undertakings like devolution should not be done for ambition’s sake alone. Decentralizing power looks suspiciously like passing a hot potato, making the most difficult problems, i.e. the housing crisis, look as if they are solely local governments’ responsibility. And it taught me that I would prefer to never have heard of such a thing as “Greater Manchester”.