James Brokenshire, the Communities Secretary has written to Yorkshire’s council leaders and MPs today (February 13) to tell them Yorkshire won’t be allowed to work together to improve our schools, roads and hospitals.
“Despite 18 of Yorkshire’s 20 council leaders, the Yorkshire Party, businesses and civic leaders all backing the One Yorkshire plan, a London MP has decided to ban Yorkshire from working as one,” Yorkshire Party Deputy Leader Chris Whitwood has told members.
“Instead, he is insisting that Yorkshire be split up into ‘Sheffield City Region’, ‘Leeds City Region’ and maybe even ‘Humberside’.
“This is a disgrace. Mr Brokenshire has no mandate to overrule the wishes of Yorkshire people. But this is what he has done.
“By allowing Mr Brokenshire to do this, the Government, and the Tory Party, are spitting in the face of every person in Yorkshire.
“We in the Yorkshire Party are disgusted that the Government has made this decision. But we aren’t surprised. It’s clear the Westminster Government is scared of anything that might give real power to Yorkshire, so people would start to see what a bad job the Government was doing of running the North.”
In a letter to Party members calling for more cash support, Chris writes: “We will be campaigning hard against this appalling decision in the days and weeks ahead. But to campaign, we need as much money as possible. Money buys us Facebook adverts. Money buys us leaflets.”
Picture: Robbie MacDonald
Under a CityMetric headline that reads “James Brokenshire’s rejection of the One Yorkshire devolution deal absolutely stinks of partisanship”, John Elledge, editor of the New Statesman magazine’s internet arm, writes: “Today’s news is a reminder, nonetheless, that this government’s abject cynicism and complete inability to do anything without a partisan lens extends far, far beyond Brexit.”
3 thoughts on “Minister spits in Yorkshire’s face on devolution”
Now perhaps Yorkshire folk will begin to understand the difficulties and frustrations people in the Duchy of Cornwall are having and we send our sincere condolences to you.
The North-South Divide is quite obvious when things like this happen. Surely we pay our taxes and vote government in power just the same as people in the South. We deserve the treating like the South .
In my life time my address was East Riding of Yorkshire , it changed to Humberside for a little while, now it’s back to East Riding… Surely we are the biggest county in England we deserve that acknowledgment.