Andy Burnham, 49, is a Labor Party figure. Mayor of Greater Manchester in mid-2017 after failing to head the party against Jeremy Corbyn two years earlier, he was one of the initiators in early November, the "manifesto for the North". This is a series of proposals aimed at bridging the divide with the South of England, considered as one of the driving forces of the vote for Brexit in 2016.
What is the fault of the north and south of England?
The Westminster Parliament neglected the north of England. I was MP, in charge of a constituency, Leigh, who voted heavily for Brexit (at 63.3% in June 2016). This vote is rather the result of a feeling of having been left behind. The North is not xenophobic, it is not narrow-minded, it is welcoming, but its inhabitants feel that they have not been listened to for a very long time.
Labor has appointed a mayor of London (in 2000), a north irish assembly (in 1998), a Scottish assembly (in 1999). He tried to create regional assemblies in other parts of the Union, to no avail; the referendum held in the north-east of England (in 2004) was lost. This created a great disparity. It was from then on that the northerners began to say to themselves: what about us? Scotland, for example, has free universities, and has a formula for allocating funds from the British Treasury, the Barnett formula, which is much more generous than for the north of England. She is well represented in Westminster (notably by the independence party SNP), but who speaks for the North?
Many Labor MPs come from the North, but we have almost never federated to defend the region. The parliamentary system does not help: when you are elected in Westminster, you say that you will fight for your constituency, but the chief whip (responsible for party discipline) says: "You have to vote like that, and not otherwise. "
Poverty, deindustrialisation, underinvestment in transport … How to solve the problems of the North?
I do not advocate for a Northern Parliament or for independence, but for more autonomy and investment. We should be able to decide on our education system, help with job search, we should be able to raise money to build social housing. Manchester was the site of the first industrial revolution in the world, why could not it take the lead of the fourth revolution, the green revolution? It was the city of economic and social progress, in XIXe century, place of great economic and social reforms: suffragettes, unions, cooperative movements.
