Brexit Has Been a 'Big Setback' for Business Admits Senior Conservative

Adrian Goldberg talks to West Midlands Mayor Andy Street

West Midlands Conservative Mayor Andy Street has admitted that Brexit has been a “big setback” for exporters from the UK’s manufacturing heartland.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Byline Times Podcast, Street acknowledged that the “oven ready deal” promised by Boris Johnson, had damaged the region’s economy – along with the pandemic and rising energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine.

“There is no question that our manufacturing output is less now than it was before all those changes came, and some of it is definitely due to the change in the terms of trade with Europe” he says.

“It's been more difficult for our manufacturers to export. I don't think anyone is questioning that.

“So I come to the very simple fact that the majority of the people here supported Brexit, and the country decided.  

“What we have to do now is rebuild those manufacturing economies that export and trade.

“The good news is that in the last 12 months, we've seen it begin to improve - but there's no hiding the fact we've had a big setback.”

Street supported Remain, but was undoubtedly buoyed by the prevailing electoral currents. When he came into office just a year after the EU Referendum, Birmingham was the only major English city to vote Leave and the nearby town of Dudley – an archetypal Red Wall seat - was one of the most decisively pro-Brexit constituencies in the country.

With another election looming next year, he might find the legacy of 13 years of Conservative rule less helpful than it has been in the past, especially if Labour continue their resurgence in the polls.

Street’s appeal, though, is primarily personal rather than political.  Short, wiry, full of energy, he’s keen to convey a “can do” attitude, with a decade as MD of department store John Lewis bearing testament to his pro-business credentials.

In the past, he has condemned what he described as Whitehall’s “begging bowl” culture, which saw deprived areas of the West Midlands competing for (and sometimes missing out on) grants from government’s Levelling Up Fund compared to more affluent towns.

He’s much more optimistic about the recent Budget announcement by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, which will see the West Midlands (along with Greater Manchester) being granted autonomy over spending on transport, housing and regeneration - cash traditionally doled out to the regions at Whitehall’s discretion.

It’s a “crossing the Rubicon moment” says Street.

“There will be one single settlement at the next Spending Review for the West Midlands - it will be billions of pounds - and we will decide how we spend that.

“The decisions will be taken close to the action, not by a civil servant in London.”

This is certainly progress, but the fact remains that while the Tories have banged the drum for “levelling up”, inequality has risen sharply across the country.

According to one report incomes for the poorest 14 million people in the UK fell by seven and a half percent in 2022, while the richest fifth of population were 7.8% better off.

Street counters that “the political dialogue around levelling up is really about a geographical issue” and points to the smart new office block in Wolverhampton where we’re meeting as an example of what the government can achieve.

Based a short walk from the city’s railway station, it accommodates around 250 civil servants from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whose jobs have been permanently moved from Whitehall.

But what about HS2, the much vaunted high speed rail link designed to improve connectivity between the capital and the north?

Transport Secretary Mark Harper was recently forced to announce a two-year delay in completion of the leg to Manchester (via Birmingham) which now won’t happen until 2032 at the earliest; while the London terminus will (for the foreseeable future) be sited to the west of the city at Royal Oak, rather than more centrally at Euston.

Street nods in partial agreement:  “One of the reasons why London is an economic powerhouse, and no other city in the country is anywhere near it, is that over decades, there's been huge over-investment in London - and under-investment in the rest of the country.

“HS2 is actually to try to answer that. Probably best part of £40 billion is being spent on the Birmingham phase of HS2, so we can't argue that we have been under invested in.

“If you look at regional investment in transport, we're spending about seven times per head what we were spending just a few years ago – belatedly, I accept.

“Over decades, many different governments have put too much into the South East and insufficient elsewhere, but we are steadily readdressing that.”

Listen here to an exclusive preview of Adrian Goldberg’s interview with Andy Street for the Byline Times podcast.