Free the North – Simon Duffy argues that tapping into the Northern spirit can transform the North into what we need. 

Amidst the emerging horrors of the 20th Century the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset wrote the prescient The Revolt of the Masses in 1929. He tried to understand why, when millions of us had unprecedented democratic, technological and economic power, we were adrift in fascism, totalitarianism, or empty consumerism. 

He argued for a better vision of human life and a better vision for the nation state. Countries must advance or they fall back. The era of brutal colonial control and expansion is (thankfully) over. Instead it is a time for greater unity and greater diversity within that unity. For this reason, Ortega y Gasset advocated a united and pluralistic Europe, to take forward the best of the European traditions, to offer us a more hopeful way of managing our multiple and overlapping identities. 

What seems true to me about this analysis is the importance of our stories of identity and the need for a hopeful trajectory within those stories. As a generic Northerner (Manchester Irish, Bolton fan, brought up in Durham, citizen of Sheffield) the fate or destiny of the North really matters to me. 

I suspect I’m English; I’m sure I’m Northern. 

But how do we tell the story of The North? How do we stay true to the rich complexity of the North within its essential context: an unequal England, a dis-United Kingdom, a discarded Europe and a planet we are making unliveable. 

Simplistic Northern Nationalism has little charm for most Northerners, I suspect. 

As Ortega y Gasset also observed: nationalists look backwards to tell their story, and so they exclude those who joined that story late. But a successful country must be able to tell their story forward: to welcome diversity and build something better and more inclusive. For the North it is essential that we adopt this forward looking stance, for the past will bring us nothing but heartache. 

But the true history of the North is not on the surface. It runs deeper and it’s found in the Northern spirit, which connects the many communities of the North. The North created modern industry, cooperatives, the suffragette movement, municipal socialism and laid the foundations of the welfare state. The Sprit of the North is fundamentally about equality and taking care of each other: justice and generosity of spirit. 

Today it’s easy to lament the failing economic power of the North. Once the economic powerhouse of the world we have now declined to equivalence with post-communist Eastern Europe. (Per capita GDP in Yorkshire is the same as in Estonia). This has been achieved by an intentional policy of managed decline combined with colonial-style structures and the erosion of meaningful local democracy. 

But simply bemoaning this state of affairs will not help us. Instead of complaining about the loss of our economic glory days it’s time to remember what really matters. 

The current measures of economic success are a big part of our problems: environmental destruction, consumerism, house price inflation, loading debt on the young, selling-off our assets and calling it investment. All these strategies simply take us further down the wrong track. Instead, we need to redesign our economic systems to protect our communities, restore the natural world and share what we need fairly. Gross inequality, not inefficiency, is our problem, but it’s a problem we can solve. 

We must also move beyond a purely economic analysis of our situation. Economics is largely a function of power and the primary problem faced by the North is a lack of power: power both in its official sense and power in true sense. 

Decades of centralisation means that that North no longer controls the education of our children, the ownership of our land, our hospitals, our media, transport systems or laws. The fact that this centralisation has gone hand in hand with decades of phoney talk about devolution should not confuse us. Nor should we be too hopeful about the current Mayoring of the North. The Northern mayors are excellent people; but mayoralties are too weak and too undemocratic to signify anything but the latest stage in our on-going crisis. 

Official power is not the only kind of power. Free citizens can create power when they get together to talk, plan and act. Power grows freely if we choose to act like citizens. We’ve lost the habits of freedom, we’ve become passive in the face of our slow decline; but this is something else that can change.  

The true challenge the North faces is actually a challenge to our constitutional imagination. We need to imagine a world where Northerners are citizens, where our neighbourhoods, villages and towns are organised – from the grassroots up. We need to start tackling our real problems and stop waiting for others to come and save us. We are rich enough in mind, body and spirit. We simply need to free ourselves from the old dead dreams that are holding us back.  

We do not need to dream of nationhood. If the North saves itself then it has a good chance of helping our friends in the South move away from crazy consumerism. We can work with our friends in Scotland, Ireland and Wales to find new ways to nurture autonomy and cooperation. We can work with our friends across Europe to protect human rights, freedom and justice. We can play our part in saving the planet from human greed. 

To be free the North must be true to itself. The North must live up to its own generous spirit, to its friendliness, its inclusivity and its commitment to citizenship for all. We don’t need to lord it over anyone – who needs lords anyway – we just need to find our true selves and to act in service to each other. 

Simon is Director of Citizen Network Research, President of Citizen Network Coop and a co-founder of the UBI Lab Network and the Neighbourhood Democracy Movement