Analysis
Tories face frosty reception in Manchester as
future of HS2 in doubt
Rowena
Mason, Pippa Crerar and Ben Quinn
Any rollback of' levelling up commitments in north
could anger ‘red wall’ voters who swung to Conservatives
Sat 30 Sep
2023 07.00 BST
As Tories
flock to Manchester for their annual conference, they are looking at an even
frostier welcome than usual in the northern city.
Once,
Manchester was at the heart of George Osborne’s promised “northern powerhouse”
project and the end destination of the HS2 rail line. Northern voters continued
to be wooed by Boris Johnson with a promise of levelling up as he sought to
retain the so-called “red wall” seats he won from Labour in 2019.
Those
love-bombing eras seem to be firmly at an end. HS2 was supposed to link London
to Manchester in just one hour and 11 minutes. But now Rishi Sunak looks likely
to put it on ice – to the fury of many northern mayors, politicians and voters.
The
promised train line was symbolic for many in the north of England who have
recently put up with months of disruption on the existing Avanti West Coast
line, where more strike action is taking place on Saturday.
A clock and
a Tory banner and flag outside Manchester Central conference centre.
Preparations
for the Conservative party conference at Manchester Central conference centre.
Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Sunak
appears to think it is worth risking the wrath of voters despite the party’s
relentless focus on retaining the former Labour seats in the north and Midlands
won by Johnson four years ago.
Conservative
insiders believe the move is driven by Sunak’s search for savings to spend on
pre-election tax cuts, which may ultimately prove more persuasive to voters
than a pledge on a long-term rail project.
“I don’t
think Rishi is giving up on levelling up but I think he’s trying to do it in a
way that realises the fiscal constraints we have,” said one Tory insider
plugged into Sunak’s thinking. “Under Boris, his view of levelling up was just
spending loads of money. It was meant to be about long-term ecosystems but
there hasn’t been the time or focus to do that with three prime ministers in
the last few years. To do levelling up properly, it was to be a decade of hard,
determined work. What the PM is doing is reflecting economic reality at the
moment.”
Others
point out that after 10 years of promises on HS2 and more prosperity for the
north of England, failure to meet those commitments will leave voters with a
sense of betrayal.
Rob Ford, a
professor of politics at the University of Manchester, questioned the upside
for the government of scrapping HS2, with any savings potentially many years in
the future and voters already sceptical that an alternative east-west link
thought to be on the table will ever be delivered.
“HS2 has
become a symbolic argument for people in the north. For many people it has
become about whether the government is delivering levelling up or not,” he
said.
“If a
south-facing Tory party dumps this project, how is that going to look? The
focus groups show that people already feel that the government is not going to
deliver on levelling up. It would be perfectly rational for them to then
conclude that Sunak won’t do whatever it is he ends up offering.”
He said the
dilemma facing the Tories was how to unite the elements of their 2019 coalition
representing different parts of the electorate when Brexit no longer had the
same salience.
“Which
seats are they trying to hold on to, the leave-leaning ‘red wall’ seats or the
traditional southern base? It feels very confused right now,” he said.
Ford also
noted that Sunak appeared to be retreating into the comfort zone of appealing
to his base rather than broadening his appeal to the whole electorate.
“Sunak
feels like he’s offering a brand of traditional Toryism – things like tax cuts
and smaller government resonate with his instincts. It’s the thread running
through a lot of the proposals floated over the last couple of weeks, from net
zero to inheritance tax,” he said.
“Politically
this looks like they’re trying to get all the main institutions that support
the Tory party back on side – the rightwing press, the activist base, business
and wealth creators. It’s a strategy for unifying the traditional elements of
the Conservative party, but not so much one for unifying the electorate.”
This
strategy – rolling back net zero pledges, pro-motorist policies and considering
more benefit cuts – has prompted concerns among some Conservative MPs that
Sunak’s No 10 is entering a core vote “bunker”.
While
polling suggests some “red wall” voters may back individual policies, there is
a sense among this demographic that Sunak personally doesn’t care about their
communities, according to focus groups organised by the thinktank More In
Common.
These
voters, described by the thinktank as “loyal nationals”, are the group with the
biggest swing away from the Conservatives since the last election. They are
also the ones the party most needs to hold on to if it wants to stay in power.
They find
Sunak’s wealth alienating, and loyal nationals also question whether the Tories
really meant to level up the country, with focus groups showing they feel the
government has broken its promises. Even among those who do not like HS2,
voters took the government’s plans to cut it as a sign it does not care.
Many
northern Conservative MPs were not wedded to HS2 but they fear voters will take
its mooted delay or cancellation as an insult. They are desperate to have solid
infrastructure to present to voters.
The answer
could be a compromise floated by the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, in
recent days: accepting a delay to HS2 between Birmingham and Leeds in return
for smaller and more achievable rail projects across the north.
Sebastian
Payne, the director of the Onward thinktank and a Conservative candidate, said
ensuring the connectivity of northern cities was the real key to levelling up.
“Whatever is decided on HS2, the thing that can’t be forgotten is that you need
to link northern cities better,” he said.
Patriotically
onbrand, members of the Northern Research Group (NRG) group of MPs elected to
represent northern England, Wales and the Scottish borders in 2019 are hoping
that their preferred name for a link across the Pennines from Liverpool to
Leeds, the Charles line, will catch on.
“People
forget 25% of the English population lives in the north of England and a whole
chunk of that is around Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford. Why shouldn’t
we have the equivalent to London’s Elizabeth line connecting them?” said John
Stevenson, the Carlisle MP who chairs the NRG. “I actually think east-west is
more important than the next stage of HS2, albeit I would still like ultimately
to see HS2 happening.”
As for the
broader question of where levelling up goes from here, the NRG is to produce
its own “northern manifesto” at next week’s Conservative conference, which will
make requests of the government.
“We have
done a lot but we want to see more done, and that’s where we want to see an
emphasis on the government bringing the north up, because our view is that it’s
good for Britain as a whole,” Stevenson said. “We’ve underperformed
economically and therefore the government should focus heavily on the north and
also it is a critical battleground when it comes to the next general election.”
He also
said Brexit as a concept was still very relevant to northern voters “in a more
nuanced form”.
“People
still have not totally grasped that Brexit was about a feeling in the north
that everything was dictated, at that time by Brussels, and there’s still a
sense that it is now dictated by London. So why not bring it home?”
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