A snap election won’t calm things down for local communities

City regions must protect citizens and build common purpose through this time of uncertainty, says Alan Southern

So here it is: another plebiscite on Brexit perhaps? After being told that everything is under control and there would be no need to disturb our lives any further, at least until 2020, Theresa May announced a June general election.

We may have thoughts about why this is happening now, but what will it mean for local places? After all, place has become a defining feature in trying to understand what the vote to leave the EU means. My view is that this election has been called in an effort to keep a lid on what is becoming a very uncertain future.

May wants a renewed mandate, one she hopes will dampen uncertainty and frame a compromise between EU negotiators and those wanting a hard Brexit.

Being led by EU negotiators is politically unacceptable at home, while a hard Brexit terrifies the financial elite not just in London but globally. One major global bank was calmed by the election announcement, pointing out that the prime minister has already begun to take the line consistent with a European negotiating approach, one that will reduce the risk to growth.

‘Cities can form alliances and create new narratives about

bending the power of government to change their economic fortunes’

Yet this is a contradiction that won’t simply go away: the need for a democratic reflex to a dangerous populist movement sweeping across Europe (May is no Trump) while at the same time reassuring the global financial sector that she can be trusted to avoid the economic damage from a hard Brexit.

What does this mean for localities? Well, for those communities who voted to remain, or who were blamed for the reactionary connotations emanating from the Brexit vote, or who even aired legitimate views on why the EU had stopped working for them, they will remain outside this debate. Global uncertainty now translated into national uncertainty, remains.

The conditions of austerity, imposed under what many considered a temporary basis, have now become permanent, normalised into the everyday lives of ordinary people and into the finances of the public sector. For some places, particularly the devolved city regions, opportunities remain and we must consider how they can be grasped. The new metro mayors, elected only weeks before the general election, must adapt to embedded austerity.

Further reassurances by central government to financial markets that managing debt while delivering economic growth can be achieved will impact on the very citizens the new mayor’s will represent. The city region must show how to react to this.

More relationship building is required. This means collaboration, collective working and building up a common purpose that rejects scampering around for scarce and scarcer resources. Liverpool city region, for example, will want to develop a more collaborative approach with Manchester. But why not also build alliances with places in north Wales, and then with Belfast and Dublin? Why not collaborate with Bilbao, Hamburg, Detroit, Atlanta, Montreal and Seoul?

Use initiatives such as the global parliament of mayors and more specifically, the Global Social Economy Forum. Create new narratives about how to bend the power of government through simple actions on commissioning and procurement, to support local businesses and the social economy with new forms of finance and to provide exciting new conditions for the private sector that drive social value through supply chains and encourages dignity in employment.

Global uncertainty is the driver, so let’s be certain about how we might respond.