“Everybody thought the EU was about people coming into the country … no-one told of us the benefits”.

[MrsMurphyIWish]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2136jnjx1o

And the response to this very now deprived community is to vote Reform.

“Brexit has removed a key source of funding, which the area desperately needs. County Durham received £154m of EU funding between 2014 and 2020, about £22m a year. Since the UK left the European Union, it receives about half that amount, £12m annually, under the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.”

The story is sad (and typical of deprived areas - I know, I live in one). Towns feeling forgotten and never recovering from closed industry but why can they not see history will repeat itself?

I agree. But that is democracy, I guess.

The projects weren't funded by the EU, they were funded by member states using tax payers money and including an extra layer of expensive bureaucracy. Some countries paid more than others and the UK was one of the top contributors. The funding was then allocated across the EU. A lot of things have happened since Brexit and money has been used on other things. There are quite a lot of regeneration projects across the EU that are in a very sad state. A place that has no jobs can be propped up by outside funding but it won't thrive in the long run.

I'm not a Brexit fan and I do think the EU benefited us in many ways. However, I don't think it offered value for money on this kind of thing.

People will always want change when they feel they are treated unfairly.
People were told the money spent on EU membership could be put to better use improving deprivation

The key issue was closing down, and permitting the closure of vast amounts of the countries manufacturing industry.

Relying on subsidies from the EU or more locally is not the answer, does not move the country forward, does not give growth.

The economy has to be sufficient to give the people a good standard of living, and pay for services - sadly many decades of mis management coupled with a shift in manufacturing towards Asia has caused us to get into a spiral of terminal decline.

EU or no EU we should have re-positioned ourselves from mass production of goods into, high end, low production, high return, high technology goods decades ago - but in stead we chose the service sector route, which will evaporate with AI.

Its nothing to do with Brexit, that's an easy excuse, it all started long before in the 1960s, accelerating through the 70's, 80's and 90's.

Its too late to reverse it now - we are doomed, even if we re-join the EU, we will be propped up by them with the worst of deals.

We were told of the benefits but those people saying how great it would be if we left just shouted louder and didn't care about lying.

Do you think it has though?

The money hasn't "gone" anywhere. The economy is just much smaller than it would have been if we hadn't left the EU so there is less money to spend on everything.

Because it benefits everyone in the UK? Do you think having areas becoming more and more deprived, towns going to rack and ruin, more and more people turning to crime due to the lack of employment and opportunities is good for anyone? Not everyone lives in London.
It is a moot point anyway. The money doesn’t exist anymore, due to our economy shrinking as a result of leaving the EU. So even if we wanted to fund them we couldn’t, as the money isn’t there.

Because if you buy into the idea of "society" you recognise how dedicated these areas were by the demise of particular industries, in this case, coal. It's fair enough that time and progress means things come to a natural end but nothing effective has been done to replace that industry.

Westminster thinks the North stops at Birmingham or maybe Leeds at a real push but you only have to look at HS2 to see how few fucks they give. They should have started construction at the northern end and see how far south they got before running out of money...who wants to bet they'd have found a way to get it all the way down so southerners reaped the benefits?

The Northern Powerhouse and leveling up initiatives have done virtually nothing for villages like Horden. We need large industries, factories, car manufacturing to be encouraged to come here. We need employment policies to make it feasible for all employers to offer jobs to 16+ who don't come from traditionally academic backgrounds and want to start earning and learning skills on jobs. Apprenticeships look great on posters but actually getting one is a different story. Supermarket jobs are found (or not) through anonymous portals that screen out using AI anyone without x qualifications so unless you know someone with a business or trade it's v v difficult.
That's why.

Yes, so the fact Durham is getting £10m less means:

The UK government is deciding to distribute its money with different priorities to the EU
and/or
There’s less money to go around overall, even with the £6bn extra

The general ‘less to go around’ might be in part due to Brexit trade rules - as well as Covid, energy prices, wars, mass migration, older infrastructure reaching end-of-life etc, but it’s a lot more complicated to unpick.

I’m just disagreeing with “we used to get free money”.

If the government had a long term growth and business strategy we’d prosper as a nation but successive governments have made short term decisions which have killed manufacturing and skills, diminished our farming and food security, and essentially sold us off to the Chinese. I’m amazed we are still punching as high as we are tbh.

Where do you live @thechaseison71?The decline of those "crappy towns" is often due to deindustrialisation. Industrialisation created huge wealth which the whole country enjoyed. The government does have a responsibility to help them or should we just all move down to the south east? How would you like that?

There is no such thing as EU money.
And sooner or later you run out of it.

The question - no calculators - is would you rather have 100% of something, or 99.5% of something that is 10% bigger.

(No everyone I have worked with since 2016 has got that).

I read that article and noticed it said that there is a community of Nigerian families living there. A worryingly large number of Daily Mail readers actually thought Brexit meant that all the foreigners would be rounded up and sent back to their respective countries like what's happening right now in the US. The fact that these 'foreigners' were legal citizens paying tax didn't figure in their equations.

The article also states that England flags went up during elections and Nigerian families suffered racist abuse such as eggs being thrown at them in the park.

Call me cynical, but it sounds like a bunch of racists that blamed all their problems on the foreigners (guided by Boris/Nigel) that then voted for whatever would get them out. No thought was ever given to grants or funding because why would it? The papers said it was the foreigners so lets get them out. Now they are left with the shit show that is Reform that don't have the ability to effect real change in deprived areas even if they wanted to.

Industrialisation created huge wealth which the whole country enjoyed.

So did slavery.

#justsayin'

Currently in South East Have also lived in NE.

The deindustrialization was in the bloody 80s mostly That's 2 generations of adults. Theres no excuse for treating your surroundings like filth. Or not getting any job available. And bringing up your kids to do the same. The govt and EU has " helped" for a generation.

Unfortunately people are getting sucked into Reform UK half truths the same as they got sucked into Boris's Brexit half truths.

Reform support companies being able to get rid of staff and replace them with lower paid people.

Lol really, do you honestly think Reform gives a shiny shit about communities like this other than to use them as pawns to get elected? Prepare to be disappointed

Reform UK supports zero hours contracts

Yep. I live in a Reform controlled local authority. I'm far from being a fan of the Tories but at least our Iast Tory council was somewhat competent at getting stuff done, even if I didn't always agree with what they were actually doing. Under Reform, everything has just stalled.

I think the pp was being ironic, no?

Farage - lied about Brexit. Farage - believed about Reform. We have too many gullible stupid voters. We were told of the dangers of Brexit. You are being told about the dangers of Reform. The nation is addicted to Farage! Madness - look at the Brits. Keep voting for failure.

Those millions weren’t given so long ago - what was the money spent on. Strikes me too much money thrown at ‘projects’ and not invested wisely. For example better to improve a school than build a swimming pool no one can afford to use. With our housing situation seeing those houses boarded up a depressing. A programme to teach the trades and encourage construction companies to get involved in getting communities the support to rebuild thier own communities would be a good start?

I'm not surprised if some people genuinely did not know that their area benefited from EU funding. The media at the time amplified the message that the EU was to blame for uncontrolled migration and the poor state of public services. I don't recall EU funding for deprived towns really being discussed at all.