Ed West Ed West

An independent London would be a Thatcherite dystopia

Tottenham MP David Lammy has been writing in the Evening Standard about how it makes sense now for London to become a ‘city-state’, following Brexit:

Over the course of the next two years as the reality of Brexit begins to bite, the economic, social and political cleavages between London and other parts of the country will become more pronounced. London’s status as a de facto city-state will become clearer and the arguments for a London city-state to forge a more independent path will become stronger.

I’ve argued before that there is an increasingly strong case for London leaving the union because the aspirations of Londoners and the people of England are diverging so much. But to be honest I’d partly like it to happen just to see people’s reactions when an independent London turned into a sort of Thatcherite dystopia that went against everything the Left once stood for. It would be like a Singapore, but without a critical mass of Chinese people to actually make it work.

The city-state of London would already have one of the highest inequality levels in EuropeIt is already a city of extreme wealth, with inner London by far the richest region in the EU. Yet it also has among the worst child poverty rates in Britain.

Although London’s taxpayers in one sense support much of the rest of the UK, the capital also gets the lion’s share of transport spending and its schools also – for now – have more money lavished on them. But the real problem with an independent London would be its lack of social capital. Trust is an essential ingredient to a successful state and it’s why the same countries appear again and again at the top of the world happiness index and other indices of well-being. High-trust societies tend to have lower rates of violence, stronger institutions, less corruption and more moderate politics; these are the places where people wish to invest and send their children.

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