The Spectator

Say no to devolution without democracy

Manchester rejected an elected mayor. George Osborne should respect that

Imagine if, in one of her first acts as First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon announced that, in spite of the result of September’s independence vote, Scotland was to declare independence anyway, on the basis that opinion polls now showed a majority of people in favour of independence and therefore there was no need for the decision to be approved in a referendum. David Cameron and his government would surely treat it as an outrage.

Why, then, has the Chancellor this week seen fit to announce that the people of Greater Manchester are to have a directly elected mayor? Two years ago the very same question was put to the people of the City of Manchester in a referendum and the answer was a resounding ‘no’. They, along with residents of eight other cities, decided that they did not wish to have an expensive extra layer of municipal government to indulge the latest fashions in Whitehall. Yet now they are to get one, whether they like it or not.

The Treasury argues that the soon-to-be-imposed mayoralty differs from the one Mancunians rejected because it covers the whole of Greater Manchester, as opposed to just the city of Manchester. But the fact that it covers a much wider area, and involves the transfer of more powers than the plan rejected in 2012, is all the more reason for obtaining a popular mandate for the change. Back then, nine out of 11 cities who were asked if they wanted a mayor replied that they did not. The Chancellor seems to believe that northerners are there to be invoked rather than consulted.

As we have seen so many times with referendums on EU treaties in other countries, the people are being treated with contempt for giving the wrong answer.

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