Early on in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s famous fixer, returns from a mission to the north of England and reports to Cardinal Wolsey, an early patron and master. “What do they eat?” Wolsey asks. “Londoners, when they can get them,” Thomas answers. “You have never seen such heathens.” They are, of course, riffing (and this is fiction). The Tudors knew full well that some areas of a country would be less prosperous than others. They were subtle enough, or mature enough, to know that differences in degree were not differences in kind. They didn’t think that people who lived in the North were essentially different from them; they didn’t think it was a place where Henry’s writ did not run.
Jibes about North and South are an old staple, but in the Britain of 2023 they have become deathly serious. The victory of Boris Johnson in 2019, masterminded by another eminence grise, Dominic Cummings, could be ascribed to votes from the North, but the North under a different guise. It was now ‘The Red Wall’: a strip of Labour seats that had changed their allegiance, perhaps for good. The Red Wall, it was said, had turned to Toryism as a Hail Mary after decades of neglect. The Red Wall had unique problems to be solved, and its own voice to be heard. We were assured therefore that Red Wall Toryism would be more authoritarian, more economically statist, and, somehow, gruffer, than its southern cousin.
Assertions of a unique Red Wallness are based on deaf and leaden tropes, most of which are from TV. An old cliché of hard Northerners and Southern fairies reappeared right on cue, an absurd conceit – it is Londoners who have, uniquely in the Western world, perfected the art of joyous proletarian violence. We are also informed that Northerners do not want free-market economics, and this is because of an industrial heritage unique to themselves. If this was the case, then it is a distinction that no longer exists. Most of the pits and factories have now disappeared; what now goes on in these towns is the usual Late Windsorite economic activity: retail, call centres, self-employed small traders. In 2023, the material interests of Bolton and Romford are identical. What Northern voters saw in Boris Johnson was not the promise of a new economy based on sharing, but the impression, real or not, of low taxes, less migration, cheap energy and national swagger. Given that there are no other true differences – ethnic, linguistic or confessional – what we must instead accept is a North and South that are more alike than ever.
Tories deploy Red Wallism promiscuously. But this approach is fraught with danger. It leaves the British people easier to control. The assertion of Northern difference has revived the project of English devolution, which had collapsed in failure by 2004. New, sometimes unsolicited powers have been duly granted to local Northern authorities – with the miniature politicians, ready cash and venal offices to match. Local authority flourishes in its own sated fug. To strengthen it is not to empower ordinary people in their own lives, but to lock them in with the worst kind of petty tyrants. The Welsh executive has banned the construction of new roads; the Scottish Government will not drill for oil, its main export. It is to be remembered that the victims of the Rotherham atrocity were failed first and foremost by their local government; if there is ever to be any justice for these women it will come from central Government in London. By detaching itself from the Westminster Parliament, all that Red Wallism accomplishes is to cut the North off from the only body with the sovereign power to bring people like Dominic Beck to heel.
Red Wallism makes particular the conflicts that should be general. It infantilises national life. A few months ago, the new deputy chairman of the Conservative Party Lee Anderson revealed that he hoped for a return of the death penalty. This took no small courage. But the debate which followed became solely about Lee’s identity. We were solemnly reminded that Lee was of the Red Wall; his views, popular there, are a local custom beyond our Southern understanding. His ideas could therefore not be criticised, or agreed with, or even debated. This is a tedious kind of Orientalism. That the cry of ‘hang ‘em and flog ‘em’ is somehow essentially Northern is absurd – are Millwall fans averse to executing criminals? How about the beachgoers of Frinton-on-Sea? This is an attempt to flee from the issues. It hopes that by associating ideas with an invented subaltern identity it can avoid having to grapple with the ideas themselves. In so doing, it gives up on any idea of a national policy, that what’s valid in Bishop Auckland might also be valid in Brighton.
Britain’s extended civil service is all too happy to let national life decline into empty wittering on regions. It is altogether easier for it to manage a collection of petty provinces than a united patrie, represented in a sovereign Parliament. The English, and later the British, have long possessed the advantage of being able to grow up and get over slight variations in food, accent and beer; we should not squander it.
J. Sorel is a pseudonym.
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The Red Wall is still nominally English. It’s the south, and especially London, that has become a foreign country.
Not the enclaves where the political class live. In those places all ir sweet and calm.
Well I have no opinion on this topic so an off-territory dump it is then…
Remember the disgustingly inhumane treatment of those deemed ”high risk” and more vulnerable in society during the scamdemic? Commonly referred to as ”shielding”, these poor folks were basically isolated and denied their basic needs of the contact and comfort of loved ones for the good of their health for extended periods of time. Well I don’t think we need a study to tell us it was all a load of cruel and unnecessary bollocks but we handily have one anyway. And will ”lessons be learnt” I wonder??
”There is no evidence that shielding benefitted vulnerable people during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a university study. The study by Swansea University compared 117,000 people shielding in Wales with the population of three million.
It found that deaths and healthcare usage were higher among those who were shielding than the general population. The Welsh Government said that shielding was introduced on medical and scientific advice and that it will continue to review evidence from the pandemic.
The rate of coronavirus was also found to be higher among those shielding, at 5.9% compared to 5.7%, according to the study. Researchers have said that the data raises questions about whether the shielding policy worked.”
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/covid-no-evidence-shielding-helped-26758086
What coronavirus pandemic??? who still believes this tripe???
To follow the official pattern – “Just think how much higher the rates would have been among the vulnerable if they hadn’t shielded.”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-disturbing-truth-about-safe-vaccines-for-mothers-to-be/
This is for you Mogs. Also in NR.
Cheers hux. I read it just now. Yes you cannot move for data demonstrating the outright danger these jabs pose for pregnant women and foetuses/babies, and the damage tragically already done. Here’s Igor’s latest on the same theme;
”We were told that the vaccine “stays in the arm.” Was that true?
On Page 3, Pfizer describes two cases (out of 458) of unborn babies affected by transplacental transfer of mRNA Covid vaccine.So, instead of staying in the arm, by Pfizer’s admission, the vaccine traveled through the mother’s body, penetrated the placenta, and adversely impacted the unborn fetuses.
One infant in the above report died of “severe respiratory distress.” (AER 2021191405)
We also know that the Moderna vaccine (higher dose) increases the chances of pregnancy loss by 42% compared to Pfizer, suggesting a dose-response relationship.”
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/miscarriages-and-dead-infants-were
Thanks Mogs. Everywhere we look it is a tale of death and destruction with these poisonous injections and clearly poor infants are being murdered also.
No question some of these children will have impaired health growing up, obviously they are the long term study group. That is if they survive the coming cull.
Absolute evil wherever we look.
BBC? Swansea University? Walesonline?
You’ll be quoting the Grauniad next.
“We are also informed that Northerners do not want free-market economics, and this is because of an industrial heritage unique to themselves. “
Er, what was the Industrial Revolution if not an new expression of free market capitalism, and where was it focussed? Where were those mills, mines, factories, self-made ‘where’s there’s muck there’s brass’ men?
This is what happens when our history is no longer taught.
Exactly.
Red wall.. blue wall.. left and right.. black.. white.. straight – gay.. bla-blah.. who gives a toss, I certainly don’t. Its just the same old elitist trick, used for centuries.. stir it up then divide and rule. Create as many divisions as possible, and throw in some diversity for good measure. Works every time.. the masses always take the bait.. and the parasites just sit back and admire their handy-work..
From here in the heart of the red wall, I can tell you that we are pretty sick of the whole trope of the ‘strong in the arm but thick in the head’, where our streets are still in black and white, and we gaze open-mouthed at electric lights like it were some kind of magic.
I suspect that many of us are little different to each other outside of the ‘bubble’, whether North, South, East or West of it. We want the government off our back, and its hand out of our pockets.We’d like a government that does its upmost to fulfill its manifesto committments, nor one that forgets the we are its master, not the other way around.
Perhaps one difference is that we in the South have more middle class metropolitan champagne socialists per square mile – the London effect? When I used to live in London, most of my friends and acquaintances fell into this category, as do many of my London-based work colleagues.
You do find pockets of it ToF in all the big cities. I would say Manchester and Leeds probably more than anywhere else, but they are not big enough that you can live your entire 15 minute life inside one of these bubbles like you could in parts of London, and perhaps Surrey. The bleaker reality is too close at hand.
I moved out of London to get away from it. It’s more diluted in the home counties.
Cragside in Northumberland used to make the southerners gape in awe at the magic.
Red Wall Toryism (or indeed Toryism in general) has no future unless they end the Net Zero nonsense. Expensive energy is further hollowing out our diminished industrial base. There is no future for industry (or the country as a whole) without cheap, abundant energy.
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/net-zero-policies-damage-growth
Not just expensive energy.
Expensive energy that will NEVER be reliable because it is weather dependent and because NO energy can be stored in adequate quantities (other than bloody great coal stockpiles, as Maggie ensured in 1985. Even then you need the power stations, only three still not blown up!).
Excellent article.
similarly the red wall are not looking for left wing policies, any more than Maggie working class supporters were looking for right wing. In both cases they want someone who seems to appreciate their interests and values and they (we) can trust.
The most prevalent misconception about northern England is that a northern accent means you are working class. This is very far from true.
I moved from London to West Yorkshire about four years ago (I am a southerner but I have previously lived in the north at various times in my life). The most noticeable difference is the prevalence of mechanics, engineers and small businessmen with no need of cheap immigrant labour. Their kind would consider voting either way, but they tend to be scientifically knowledgeable and open to climate scepticism. They are also unanimous that Net Zero is just not going to happen at our current standard of living. I could easily imagine climate as the new Brexit, the issue that will just not go away however often the political class try to lance the boil.
Correct. The policy of English “devolution” into regions is not devolution ….. it’s balkanisation.
It’s a deliberate attempt to weaken English unity and its position within the United Kingdom …. a classic example of “divide and rule” by the governing class.
The EU was deliberately creating “a Europe of the regions” in order to weaken national Parliaments. Scotland, Wales, NI and London were all granted region status and their own Parliaments (Mayoralty in the case of London). England was too big to be a region and was to be sub-divided.
And that is still the policy: balkanisation of England.
IWHT the Red Wall is an artefact of the FPTP voting system.