For two decades, British politicians have promised to return power to local communities. Labour talks of devolution, Conservatives speak of localism, and Liberal Democrats champion community politics. Yet somehow, ordinary residents have less say over their local area than ever before. The explanation is simple: Westminster has confused devolving power to politicians with devolving power to people.
The Metro Mayor Monarchy
Labour's flagship devolution policy has been the creation of combined authority mayors — regional supremos who wield unprecedented power over transport, housing, and economic development across multiple council areas. Andy Burnham controls Greater Manchester's £6 billion budget with less democratic oversight than a parish councillor faces over a village hall renovation.
Photo: Greater Manchester, via fahrnipedia.ch
These metro mayors aren't just powerful; they're practically untouchable. Elected once every four years on turnouts barely scraping 30%, they operate with minimal scrutiny between elections. Burnham can impose congestion charges, redirect housing development, and restructure bus routes across ten local authorities, yet residents of Stockport or Oldham have no mechanism to hold him accountable for decisions that affect their daily lives.
The same pattern repeats across England. In the West Midlands, Andy Street presided over the collapse of his flagship housing programme while promising voters he was 'getting things done'. In Tees Valley, Ben Houchen spent £40 million on a failing airport while his own audit committee raised concerns about financial management. These aren't isolated scandals — they're the inevitable result of concentrating power without accountability.
The Combined Authority Con
The combined authority model represents everything wrong with modern British governance: complexity without democracy, bureaucracy without responsibility. These bodies operate through arcane structures of boards, panels, and committees that would make Brussels blush. Try finding out how your combined authority spent its budget last year — you'll need a PhD in public administration and several weeks of free time.
Take Transport for the North, the combined authority covering 15 million people from Liverpool to Hull. Its board includes council leaders, business representatives, and transport officials, but not a single directly elected member accountable to the public it serves. When TfN's rail improvement plans collapse or its bus strategies fail, who gets fired? Nobody. Who faces the voters? Nobody. Who pays the price? Everyone except those responsible.
The Planning Power Grab
Nowhere is the localism lie more obvious than in planning policy. Labour promises to build 1.5 million homes by empowering local communities to shape development — then strips those same communities of any meaningful say over what gets built where.
The new National Planning Policy Framework effectively mandates high-density development in areas designated for growth, regardless of local opposition. Parish councils can object, residents can campaign, and local MPs can protest, but if the regional spatial strategy says an area must accommodate 2,000 new homes, that's what it gets.
This isn't accidental. Labour's housing targets require overriding local democracy because most communities, when genuinely consulted, prefer modest growth that respects local character over the tower blocks and housing estates that meet government quotas. The solution isn't better consultation — it's eliminating consultation altogether.
The Elected Mayor Mirage
Even at the local level, the push for elected mayors has concentrated power in the hands of individuals rather than communities. Bristol's mayor can set budgets, hire and fire senior officers, and determine policy across multiple departments with minimal council oversight. When Marvin Rees imposed clean air zones that devastated local businesses, residents had no recourse except waiting four years for the next election.
The traditional committee system may have been slower and more cumbersome, but it required consensus-building and gave backbench councillors real influence over decisions. The mayoral model treats democracy as an inconvenience to be streamlined away in the name of efficiency.
The Unelected Executive Class
Behind every combined authority and metro mayor sits an army of unelected officials wielding extraordinary power. These aren't traditional civil servants implementing democratically-decided policy — they're strategic directors and deputy mayors making decisions that affect millions of lives.
In London, deputy mayors for housing, transport, and environment operate with budgets larger than most government departments. They're appointed by the mayor, answerable only to the mayor, and can reshape entire boroughs based on their personal policy preferences. When Sadiq Khan's deputy mayor for housing decides to concrete over the Green Belt, affected communities can complain to... Sadiq Khan.
The Conservative Alternative
True localism requires genuine accountability, not just moving the same unaccountable structures to a different level of government. This means smaller councils where residents know their councillors personally, not regional authorities covering millions of people. It means elected sheriffs responsible for local policing priorities, not police and crime commissioners covering entire counties. It means planning decisions made by people who live with the consequences, not officials in distant regional headquarters.
Most importantly, it means accepting that democracy is messy and sometimes inefficient. The committee system may take longer to reach decisions than a directly elected mayor, but those decisions have legitimacy because they emerged from genuine debate and compromise. The parish council may seem quaint compared to a combined authority, but residents can actually influence its decisions through participation rather than just voting once every four years.
The Swiss Model
Switzerland demonstrates what genuine localism looks like. Swiss communes average fewer than 3,000 residents and retain significant autonomy over taxation, spending, and planning. Citizens regularly vote on specific policy proposals through referendums, and local politicians are part-time volunteers rather than career bureaucrats.
The result isn't chaos but remarkable democratic engagement. Swiss turnout in local referendums often exceeds 70%, compared to barely 30% for British local elections. When people have real power over decisions that affect them, they exercise it responsibly.
The Accountability Deficit
Britain's devolution experiment has created the worst of all worlds: power exercised at a level too distant for meaningful accountability but too local for professional competence. Metro mayors lack the resources and expertise of central government but wield far more power than traditional local councils. They're accountable to vast, diverse electorates but responsible for highly technical decisions about transport infrastructure and economic development.
The predictable result is government by press release — grand announcements followed by quiet failures, with nobody taking responsibility for the gap between promise and delivery.
Reclaiming Democracy
Real devolution means devolving power to communities, not politicians. It means neighbourhood planning with real teeth, not consultation exercises that can be ignored. It means local budgets set by people who pay the bills, not officials who spend other people's money.
Most of all, it means accepting that the best decisions are made by those who live with their consequences — and that democracy isn't just about choosing between competing elites every few years, but about ordinary people having a genuine say in the decisions that shape their lives.
Until British politics rediscovers this basic truth, every promise of localism will remain what it has always been: a lie told by politicians who want power for themselves while pretending to give it away.
