Devolution

While it might be more interesting to write about #brexit and the incredible bonfire of the loyalties which is unfolding in Westminster, local council business doesn't wait and the devolution deal is still rumbling on, now without a driver.

The wave of recent devolution deals and the silly "region x powerhouse" branding have been the pet projects of George Osborne, who is currently hiding under a table hoping that he won't catch any of the airborne ordure from his awful efforts in the referendum campaign. While we will hopefully never see him again, we have the latest version of a deal for Cambridge, now covering Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, to discuss in the Guildhall tomorrow evening.

The first version of the deal was something that a graphic designer might describe as having "hairy arms". It was so lamentably wrong, geographically and economically, that it could only be sent back. Now we've got the new version, which is what the first version should have been, and the problems are more subtle.

1) Labour have put a lot of work into trying to get something out of the deal for Cambridge, recognising that the deal could be imposed on the region without consent if the government wanted to force it. The issue of affordable housing is desperate at the moment, and an obvious popular choice to try and negotiate on. What the deal now offers is a relatively small amount though, £70m, which will all be spent after 5 years. The 500 council homes that it provides will be wonderful, but the surrender of power and the mandate for over-development will be indefinite.

2) That's the frightening thing about the deal - it is about putting a rocket under the growth agenda. Shadowy development programmes like the City Deal and pollution generators like the A14 upgrade have been moving too slowly apparently, There aren't enough cranes on the skyline. The newly appointed mayor will be responsible for making sure nothing stands in the way, and all the funding for the Combined Authority pot will be dependent on contributing to national growth.

3) There's very little in the deal about contributing to national or regional happiness. Growth isn't interchangeable with happiness, or even fairness. The main beneficiaries are likely to be a few developers and employers, with most people suffering environmental degradation and pollution. The deal should have much stronger ambitions for managing sustainable growth. It shouldn't just claim that it has a low-carbon, knowledge-based economy, it should spell out measures or incentives to ensure that. The devolution deal plans about 30 years ahead, taking us up to roughly 2050. We may not need a Combined Authority for the area after that unless we make a radical and thorough transition to a low-carbon economy, as it will be reclaimed by the sea.

4) The deal papers contain an evaluation of the four different options for the future: The status quo, an Economic Prosperity Board, a Combined Authority, and a Mayoral Combined Authority. The advantages of each are explained quite cogently until the mayor comes in - the reason for his or her inclusion is that it would "afford additional flexibilities". In other words, the Tories have set the system up this way because they want to have mayors swanning around like quasi-dukes, calling the shots. The evaluation doesn't argue that it's the best choice for the region, but that it's just what they like.

I contest that real devolution would be about giving power back to the people, and having a Combined Authority using Proportional Representation to select a diverse and inclusive group from across the region to govern. It wouldn't be that confusing, that's how we used to elect MEPs. It would also involve giving more power to raise taxes in the area, in order to have some form of independence.

Instead, the government are starving local authorities of funding in a cruel and manipulative way to try and leave no option but to take the Faustian pact offered by devolution deals. Forced to cut services, barraged by endless schemes to rearrange the way things are done, it's no wonder the status quo is struggling. But the terms of these deals are the puppeteers strings, with which the Tories hope to make councils follow their wishes and act against their own self-interests. The voters will see councils making more and more decisions that exploit and degrade their regions, like fracking for example, with few of them following the trail of culpability back to Westminster.

So it looks like we might get forced to go through with this anyway, I would have liked us to fight harder though for environmental protections, workers rights, proportional representation and more guarantees of lasting funding.

One last note, which casts doubt over this whole messy exercise, is that the devolution deal places great stock in Local Enterprise Partnerships as a vehicle for funding and collaboration. These organisations exist to share out EU social funding, and will be of questionable purpose once we go through with #brexit. Perhaps the Tories plan to channel funding directly into LEPs now instead of letting it go via the continent, or perhaps we'll find out we were actually getting more out than we put in.

The EU is on trial for a crime it didn't commit

We're just over a day away from the EU referendum now, and I am fairly sick of the whole thing. The debate has been dire, the campaigns have been dominated by mansplaining, and there has a tinge of fear and division to the whole thing.

I'll vote to remain, and of all the reasons for this, I think the least frequently mentioned is the wish to share what is Great about Britain. I think we do have a country to be proud of, with a few bad apples, and I'd like it to remain easy for the rest of the world to see what makes us so special. I'd like tourists to be able to see our architectural achievements, our stunning natural heritage, and our technological ingenuity. I think British welcomes can be among the warmest and most genuine in the world, and our sense of fair play is strong, among the ordinary folk at least. If we shore up our borders and exalt our islandness, we'll be coyly hiding away all that we have to offer the world.

What really startles me about the referendum is that it isn't really about the EU though. The Leave campaign have fairly successfully managed to heap the blame for a number of dreadful problems at the door of Brussels. All of these could more aptly be left on the pavement of Downing Street.

Loss of sovereignty is often mentioned. The rate at which the UK government are selling off assets and services, and selling out our industries is where we should all be looking when we talk about sovereignty. The TTIP treaty is being bandied around as one of the evils of the EU, although most of Vote Leave were talking about TTIP in reverential terms until it became politically useful to turn on it (and also at a time when it was looking increasingly likely to fall apart due to the patient and vigilant campaigning of a few MEPs who actually turned up for their jobs). Something resembling TTIP, with all of it's worst features, is likely to crawl forward in a UK/USA format if we leave the EU. That format, like NAFTA, is the preferred format of neoliberal elites, as they can more efficiently asset-strip countries who are alone and exposed. So the EU is on trial for the crimes of Tory and UKIP MEPs who allowed TTIP to get so far through the EU without being shot down.

Red tape is also mentioned. This does seem a naked allusion to worker's rights and environmental protections, as if they're getting in the way of real progress. They're framed as bad things, but if we were having a referendum about them in isolation, I think most of them would be plainly good things. I'd prefer that we were having a referendum about staying on the planet, rather than on the EU, because #gaiexit would have far bigger economic and social impacts than #brexit! The EU is also commissioning research to find new ways of doing things, in ways that the UK parliament never has. In December it is commissioning a scientific conference on "Non-Animal Approaches - The Way Forward" with huge potential to identify and develop new methods to prevent human diseases based on human models. Just implementing bans and regulations in law is not effective on it's own, we need to find new and better systems as well which make the old ways obsolete. So the EU is on trial for the most basic and barbaric practices of British industry.

Furthermore, the the EU is being portrayed as a money vacuum where British pounds are posted off to get smelted into Euros. The Leave campaign aren't putting a lot of work into this, but it is given ready credence by people who see absolute wreckage and decay around them. Although the EU spends enormous sums on regeneration and social investment in the UK, people tend to see it as an elite institution which only spends on universities and arts projects. But the real culprit here is the UK government's policy of austerity and targeted economic growth. Huge parts of the country are being left to managed decline, barely seeing any investment or return on their taxes, while a few square miles of "privileged" property are seeing far more frantic investment than they can actually take. Cambridge is one such example - it is very lucky to be able to live here, and even more lucky for the few who own homes here, but we are in the midst of an attempt to fit several cities worth of jobs, homes and roads into a tiny historic settlement. This is how the government deal with prosperity - make the successful bits of the country bigger, and leave the unsuccessful bits to atrophy. Never mind treating the country as a whole and trying to cultivate a prosperous and sustainable system. So the EU is on trial for the Tory crimes of austerity and "managed decline".

This is why Cameron's and Osborne's role in the Remain campaign has been so weak and false. They can't admit that they're really to blame, so they have been fudging it. If we do vote to leave the EU, then the far-right austerity apologists will find the next in an increasingly implausible series of scapegoats, so that the blame never falls on the perpetrators. The tools of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt are powerful, so nobody should feel safe from being used a scapegoat for the next wave of divisive hatred. Nigel Farage has proven just as capable as Donald Trump in kidding people that he's not part of the establishment. Not a central part of the problem. And pointing angry fingers at other "elites".

And even if the UK votes to remain, we still have a huge challenge to face in undoing the division which has been sowed, and we can't expect help from the newspapers or television outfits who trade here. Somehow we need to pin the blame where it really lies, and hold austerity and capitalism to account. And we need to acknowledge the few things with the EU that aren't working and fix them, something UK can genuinely contribute to. The referendum campaign has been so negative that we've heard a lot about what's worst in the UK and the worst in Europe, but to overcome the real problems in the world we need the best of the UK, and the best of Europe.