Prime Minister Johnson’s flagship policy meets reality in one English

By Elizabeth Piper and David Milliken

SUNDERLAND, England (Reuters) – When Britain left the European Union on Jan. 31 last year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his top ministers travelled to Sunderland for a special cabinet meeting and hailed “a new chapter in the United Kingdom’s story.” The post-industrial city, in northeast England, holds a special significance for Johnson and his fellow Brexit campaigners. It became known as “Brexit city” when it was the first region to fall to the “Leave” side in a 2016 referendum, with support of nearly two thirds of Sunderland voters.

Now it could become Johnson’s talisman again for a policy that has come to define him since Brexit – tackling regional inequalities, particularly between the affluent southeast of England around London and former industrial areas of the north. It’s an agenda that Johnson calls “levelling up” – and it is at the heart of Johnson’s strategy to stay in power.

Already Johnson’s Conservative Party has made big electoral gains in traditional Labour-voting areas of the north. In 2019, the northeast elected seven new Conservative MPs. If levelling up succeeds, the Conservatives hope, places like Sunderland will also abandon Labour.

Johnson has spoken of his ambitions for more police, nurses, football pitches and green technology, better transport, education and broadband, and plans to clean up chewing gum and graffiti.

Political opponents say the policy is populist and lacks substance and that in some cities Johnson is trying to take credit for investments made by previous governments and regeneration projects that are already underway. A former adviser to Johnson told Reuters the prime minister adopted his levelling up slogan during the 2019 election campaign and could not be persuaded to drop it even though some aides branded it meaningless.

In response, a government spokesperson said the government is delivering on a central mission. “The 4.8 billion pounds Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK, including regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and investing in cultural and heritage assets,” the spokesperson said.

Some members of Johnson’s Conservative Party are quietly concerned that the prime minister is breaking with the party’s low-tax, small-state ideology by promising to raise living standards and improve public services across northern and central England. Ministers have repeatedly denied the Conservative Party has turned away from its defining ideology.

A HOME-GROWN POLICY

Near the River Wear, which cuts through Sunderland, a city of around 280,000 people, a few boarded-up buildings offer a glimpse of the city of old, rapidly being replaced by glass and steel constructions.

The city’s regeneration is being led by the local…