Prof Arianna Giovannini
Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy. Previously, she was Associate Professor of Local Politics and Public Policy, and Director of the Local Governance Research Centre at De Montfort University; and Director of IPPR North. Her research focuses on devolution, multi-level governance and regional inequalities.
Email: arianna.giovannini@uniurb.it
X: @AriannaGi
UK Election 2024
Section 3: The nations and regions
25. Have voters fallen out of love with the SNP? (Dr Lynn Bennie)
26. The spectre of Sturgeon still looms large in gendered coverage in Scotland (Melody House, Dr Fiona McKay)
27. The personalisation of Scottish politics in a UK General Election (Dr Michael Higgins, Dr Maike Dinger)
28. Competence, change and continuity: a tale of two nations (Dr Will Kitson)
29. Election success, but problems remain for Labour in Wales (Dr Nye Davies)
30. Four ways in which Northern Ireland’s own seismic results will affect the new Parliament (Prof Katy Hayward)
31. Bringing People together or pulling them apart? What Facebook ads say about the NI campaign (Dr Paul Reilly)
32. A New Dawn For Levelling Up? (Prof Arianna Giovannini)
33. Who defines Britain? National identity at the heart of the 2024 UK General Election (Dr Tabitha Baker)
The pledge to “level up the country” featured strongly in the 2019 general election campaign. Together with the promise to “get Brexit done”, it allowed Boris Johnson to make significant inroads in traditional “red” constituencies in the North and the Midlands, and win the contest. Five years later, many things have changed – but not in the right direction. Several ministers committed to deliver change and address socio-economic divides under the banner of levelling up. A White Paper was heralded as the key to economic renewal through devolution. A plethora of new funding were created to reach the same goal. Yet, none of these have worked. Regional inequalities not only have continued to persist, but they have widened. For the most part, as some warned from the start, levelling up has remained an empty slogan.
The campaign narrative of the 2024 general election shifted considerably. While the Conservatives fortunes unravelled at the seams, Labour presented itself as the party of change, able to deliver what the Tories repeatedly promised, but never achieved: growth and prosperity for all people and places. In presenting their own version of levelling up, though, Labour were far more cautious: their manifesto pledges focussed on change and growth, with little explicit focus on the issue of regional inequalities. Electoral strategy probably played a role in this: the architects of Labour’s campaign knew that, to return to power, the party had to win support across the country, and not just in its traditional strongholds – often in left-behind places – that had turned blue in 2019. As the election results have shown, this strategy worked at the ballot box. Yet, to hold on to this victory, Keir Starmer’s government will have to move quickly and deliver substantial results on the ground: a goal replete with opportunities as well as challenges.
On a policy level, the Labour manifesto’s ambition to rebalance the economy and achieve growth across the country pointed to the need to embed a place-based approach in their strategy. Starmer’s new government seems to have started on the right foot on this. Meeting with the leaders of the devolved nations and England’s 12 metro-mayors in the first days in office sent a strong signal – showing that the new PM and his team want to move fast in developing stronger territorial relations across the country, sticking to their commitment to deepen and widen existing forms of devolution. Announcements regarding the development of Local Growth Plans as pillars of a new Industrial Strategy, as well as the creation of a Council of the Nations and the Regions also suggests the government is keen to put spades in the ground from the start on its commitment to deepen and widen devolution, while improving collaboration and dialogue with all the devolved institutions. The devil, as ever, will be in the details. For example, to be able to deliver change in their communities and shift the dial from the competitive approach developed by the previous government, England’s metro-mayors will need longer-term funding, with greater flexibility on how these are spent. Beyond a good first meeting in Downing Street, whether and how this will happen remains unclear. Finally, while warm words have been spent to highlight the importance of reviving local government across the country, finding a clear reform strategy that is able to resurrect the sector – and the key services it provides – after a damning decade of austerity that has left it on its knees will require a clear plan and an amount of funding that won’t be readily available.
On a political level, the “nation-wide” strategy deployed in the campaign means the new government’s parliamentary majority rest on a territorially widespread and very diverse and volatile set of seats – spanning economically moderate and socially conservative constituencies snatched from the Tories, progressive urban areas as well as places with high levels of deprivation. Furthermore, while the First Past the Post electoral system helped Labour win back support in its traditional heartlands in the North that supported Brexit and swung to the Conservatives in 2019, the fact that Reform got second in many of these places is a stark reminder that the “revenge of the places that don’t matter” is far from being over. Addressing all these issues, while keeping together a coalition of such intense and conflicting worldviews, needs and expectations, will be no mean feat.
The emergence of such a fragmented, politically disillusioned and volatile political landscape is, in large part, the result of the previous government’s failure to level up the country. One of Labour’s key challenges to hold on to power will be to address the persistent inequalities that cut across the UK, and the resentment towards politics that comes with them – delivering a process of real change, tangible for all the constituencies that supported them. Acting swiftly, putting into practice a place-based approach to economic and social policy with devolution at its heart, will be key to achieving this. But can Starmer’s government really embrace the changes needed?
