Will Cornwall be a priority in a post-Brexit UK?

My article in his week's Cornish Guardian looks at whether Cornwall will get a fair share from Westminster in a post-Brexit UK. It will be as follows:

Last week, Mebyon Kernow’s economy spokesman Andrew Long challenged the Prime Minister and Cornwall’s six MPs to “come clean” about their post-Brexit plans for regional investment.

In particular, he sought confirmation whether Cornwall will receive the same level of investment from the UK Government that it would have done from EU structural funds.

The reaction to our statement, on social media and elsewhere, was quite varied. Given the manner in which Brexit continues to dominate political discourse across the UK, I suppose I should not have been surprised that some considered it scaremongering or simply another aspect of an anti-Brexit “project fear.”

But MK’s challenge is very important. It follows new analysis from the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) about the regional development funding that would come to the United Kingdom in the 2021-2027 period if it stayed in the European Union.

The CPMR report clarifies that the low level of economic performance in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly means it would continue to be classed as a “less developed region” and, along with West Wales and three parts of northern England, it would have received the top level of structural funding.

Andrew Long has pointed out that “there is great inequality across the United Kingdom” and Cornwall has received significant structural funding, not least because of “decades-long under-investment” from central government.

I share his lack of faith in the present UK Government and fear that Cornwall will not be a post-Brexit priority for May and her colleagues.

I was fortunate to be able to raise some of these concerns on a recent edition of BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme, but I was very disappointed with the response from George Eustice, Fisheries Minister and MP for Camborne and Redruth.

He spoke about how future regional funding would be through a “Shared Prosperity Fund,” though the UK Government has yet to publish meaningful information about how this would work.

Mr Eustice also said that the total amount of money in the Fund has not yet been decided, adding it “may be a little less” or “may even be more” than has come through the EU structural funding in recent years. Worryingly, he gave no specific commitment to Cornwall.

In addition, there have been multiple reports about a Government plan to support a number of deprived areas in the north of England and elsewhere with extra cash, as long as their Labour MPs back Theresa May’s Brexit deal. This would presumably mean there would be even less regional funding available for investment in Cornish communities.