Burnham is right: The future lies with devolution

Gill Morris | 1st July 2026 | Comment
(Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
(Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

After Andy Burnham's first major speech since the resignation, devolution has been the word on everyone's lips - Gill Morris explains why it's the way forward.

In the words of Bob Dylan, “the times they are a-changin”.

With the end of two-party politics and the arrival of five-way politics, how we are governed — and who holds real power in a populist world — is turning UK politics on its head. A new order is emerging. The political map has been redrawn and it is hard to know where it ends. Red and Blue are OUT and Turquoise, Yellow and Green are IN. The colours of the political landscape and how we are governed changed on 7th May 2026.

Like most people, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act may have passed you by. It hardly grabbed the headlines. Yet it represents one of the biggest shifts in English governance in a generation, transferring power away from Westminster towards England’s regions. Devolution is happening. It is exciting, disruptive and powerful, built on the principle that decisions should be made closer to the people they affect — by those with skin in the game, backed by real resources and real power. Combined with local government reform, English devolution could become the democratic reset a hyper-centralised Britain desperately needs.

Done well, it will empower people, deliver visible change and challenge the “you’re all the same” and “left behind” rhetoric dominating modern politics. A fully devolved North is on the horizon, with the Midlands, East, South and West being shaped up to follow. Well …

Subscribe to The Mace

Join the member community shaping British politics and stay ahead of what's really happening in the world of politics and public affairs, with expert analysis, breaking news, and insider insights from Westminster and Brussels. The Mace is the leading news source and resource for the government affairs industry, offering required reading and lobby intelligence for professionals.

To see what you are missing out on by not subscribing to The Mace, click here to download our full membership info-pack. This includes having no paywall on op-ed content or profiles/interviews, allowing professional profiles to be read with maximum impact and visibility by government, special advisers, MPs, peers, civil servants, and policy and political decision-makers.



The continuing political Whydunnit of the murder of Ann Widdecombe

Mace Magazine | July 23, 2026

The strangely guilty way that the media, and some politicians have reacted to Widdecombe’s shocking death shows the double standards that can operate when a politician of the

What James Purnell’s return to No 10, along with the new cabinet, reveals about Burnham’s Labour network

Mark Leftly | July 21, 2026

James Purnell’s return to frontline politics is more than a nostalgic Blair-Brown era reunion. As Andy Burnham builds his Downing Street operation, public affairs professionals will need to

Ann Widdecombe Devon hamlet murder mystery continues as tributes make her a political saint

William Cash | July 16, 2026

The death of Ann Widdecombe raises serious questions about the security of high-profile politicians. The shocking episode seems out of Midsomer Murders with the former Tory minister being turned into

The Families Left Out of the Nicotine Policy Debate

Beatriz Santos | July 15, 2026

Beatriz Santos argues that both scientific evidence and lived experience should remain the foundation of policymaking, especially for understanding how people succeed in quitting cigarettes.

Olly Robbins shows Whitehall is prepared to hold Westminster to account

Lucy Carrier-Pilkington | July 14, 2026

The former head of the Foreign Office is now taking legal action, putting the government's treatment of senior civil servants under fresh scrutiny.

Kemi is right to lift the white, Oxbridge fatwa and purge the Conservative party of non-Tories

William Cash | July 10, 2026

Overhauling the Tory candidates list is a shrewd political move which will allow her to put her own stamp on the party, and more importantly, shape its future,

Caroline Simpson: Why devolution needs this technocrat

Lucy Carrier-Pilkington | July 1, 2026

Amid the frenzy over who Burnham will choose as his chancellor, his shrewd appointment of Caroline Simpson to lead No. 10 North has been overlooked.

UK’s £4.7 billion Defence black hole: Dan Jarvis is inheriting a defence settlement Britain can no longer afford

Mace Magazine | July 1, 2026

Britain cannot afford to fall behind its NATO allies on defence spending, writes Jasset Harlech.

CPAC GB 2026: “Save Britain, save the West” 

Mace | June 30, 2026

Introducing the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on British soil, a landmark expansion of the world's premier conservative networking brand.  

Merkel’s Legacy is in Tatters

Azeem Ibrahim OBE | June 30, 2026

How Angela Merkel Weakened the West and Handed Putin and Xi Leverage