Localism, Levelling up, and Taking Back Control: tensions in the ambiguous justification of English devolution

There is an increasingly powerful argument for the decentralisation of policymaking in England’s highly centralised political context. In recent years, this issue has represented one of the clearest examples of consensus in the UK’s increasingly polarised party politics. However, this consensus has risked obscuring the conflicting justifications, and ambitions, for English devolution that have been stitched together by successive governments. In this paper we consider three common justifications for English devolution: that it enhances democracy; that it promotes policy efficacy and government efficiency; and that it disrupts concentrations of power. Since 2010, these justifications for devolution have all been prominent features of government policy rhetoric, but there has been little reflection on the tensions between them and the different implications they have for the design of devolution in practice. This paper demonstrates why reconciling these inherent tensions will be critical to the long-term stability of the devolution project in England.