Interregional inequalities and UK sub-national governance responses to Brexit

Abstract

This paper discusses the various potential impacts of Brexit on UK regions and outlines the sub-national governance challenges these potential impacts raise. In the light of these, the types of activities that UK sub-national governance bodies have initiated in preparation for Brexit are then reviewed. The conclusions suggest that the UK sub-national institutional system is largely unprepared for the post-Brexit realities.

Perceptions of regional inequality and the geography of discontent: insights from the UK

“…. These difficulties are further compounded by the effects of Brexit, which are likely to undermine many economic and governance efforts aimed at galvanizing the UK's weaker regions (Billing, McCann, & Ortega-Argilés, 2019), even in situations where central government would like to be able to devolve and decentralize. .…”

The Implications of Brexit for UK and EU Regional Competitiveness

“…1 The large majority of evidence implies that the potential implications of a no-deal Brexit suggest that there will be strong adverse implications for all UK regions as well as some other EU regions. More specifically, the exposure of regional economies to cross-border trade is likely to be more serious for many of the largely Leave-voting, geographically noncore and economically weaker regions of the UK than they are for the geographically core, economically stronger and largely Remain-voting regions of the UK (Los et al 2017;Chen et al 2018;Billing, McCann, and Ortega-Argilés 2019). In particular, the UK regions, which are generally close to continental Europe, typically face lower levels of Brexit trade-risk exposure than UK regions geographically further away from mainland Europe, except for Scotland.…”

Variegated Europeanization and urban policy: Dynamics of policy transfer in France, Italy, Spain and the UK

“…The three-way relations between cities, the national government and the EU that characterize EU Cohesion Policy will be severed, and power relations will realign between different scales of governance and territorial administrations, which will introduce new power asymmetries into urban policy (Sykes and Schulze Bäing, 2017). Research suggests that socio-spatial inequalities in the UK are set to worsen after Brexit, particularly in already declining areas that are less resilient in the face of economic shocks (Billing, McCann, and Ortega-Argilés, 2019). The implications would suggest that there is all the more need for a targeted locally-administered place-based urban policy to support vulnerable places and communities in disadvantaged urban areas, whether they are inside the EU or not.…”