An autonomous North England takes a huge step forward

A seismic shift in Northern politics is taking place and fast gaining momentum with the formation of the brand new Northern Party. The party has been formed by folk from across the political spectrum which is probably the best reflection that the old politics just isn’t working for the North and the party will be trying to rectify this by pushing for autonomy for the region including a complete reboot of democratic systems.

There’s a saying that you either do politics or you have politics done to you and it would appear that many people in the North are over having politics done to them. The most pertinent example of this is fracking with vast swathes of the trans Pennine Bowland shale formation due to be turned into a toxic frackfield with no mandate from the people whatsoever and in most cases completely against their will. The Northern Party’s policy on fracking is that it should only proceed if the people of the North want it to. This only sounds eminently simplistic and obvious because of the huge democratic deficit that people currently suffer under and is the perfect example of why there is a demand for such decisions to be taken locally rather than have a cabal of oil and gas industry captured politicians impose an “ultrahazardous” industry upon the North from a thoroughly detached Westminster even though we have Doctors screaming out for the “inherently risky” process to be banned.

This isn’t the only ongoing example of such an appalling lack of democracy bordering on totalitarianism. In November of last year Chancellor George Osborne flounced into town to inform the people of Greater Manchester that we are going to have a Mayor imposed upon us even though we decisively voted against having a Mayor in 2012 and that we would have absolutely no say in the matter this time around?!? It didn’t end there. Earlier this year we were subsequently told that the Greater Manchester NHS budget would be devolved as part of the “deal” effectively ending the “national” part of the health service. All of this has been arranged behind closed doors with minimal to no public consultation. This is precisely the kind of situation that the new Northern Party will be fighting to put an end to.

We could spend pages remarking upon the unconscionable and never ending disparities between the North and the South but they are already throughly well documented. The fact that if you happen to be born 300 miles to the South you will most likely live an extra 10 years, experience a much lesser degree of infant mortality and have orders of magnitude more infrastructure spending on your behalf. The fact that we don’t have to repeat these things is thoroughly depressing, the fact that nothing has ever been done about such a morally repugnant state of affairs, more so.

The North is now fighting back and when viewed in the context of a mass political awakening sweeping down from the Scottish highlands it could be time to flush the Xanax down the toilet as the people of the North are finally starting to “do politics”. The Scots have been asked the question regarding the Union and the answer is that it will inevitably be breaking up on the basis of Scottish voter demographics alone with older Unionists dying off every day being replaced by younger advocates of independence. Perhaps more importantly than this almost half of an entire nation who we are supposed to be in partnership and harmony with have openly and forcefully declared that they are sick and tired of the current broken model of Westminster politics…and its not just the Scots that think this.

Both Yorkshire and the North East are currently experiencing a boom in devolution movements. Now Lancashire has finally joined the party and although there will be some who may have concerns over the splitting of Northern devolution votes the most important thing is that the people of the region are now eminently more politically active and will no doubt be bright enough and definitely motivated enough to be able to thrash out a way forward and as Westminster quite literally crumbles into the Thames a new form of politics is already taking its place.

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