Mrs May just needs to listen...

Senior Research Fellow at IPPR North YOU could say the North East was where it all started, with the early declarations on referendum night signalling that sunrise over the north sea could bring a decision to leave the EU.

Today the region provides the setting for Theresa May to outline the Cabinet Committee’s conclusions – following last week’s meeting at Chequers – on the deal Britain should seek with the EU, as well as the government’s vision for a post-Brexit Britain. So what announcements could she make that would boost the North East economy?

Frictionless trade is important for the North East, whose healthy export profile is well known. Businesses have made the most of their proximity to the ports of northern Europe, by seizing opportunities to build shared ‘value chains’ (in which components move between countries during the manufacturing process).

That’s helped to boost growth and employment, but now it means that regions like the North East are vulnerable to any increase in barriers to trade, as demonstrated by recent research at the University of Birmingham. And analysis for the London School of Economics shows that some of the North East’s main industries – including chemicals, transport manufacturing and retail – could face challenges even under a fairly ‘soft’ Brexit scenario.

Theresa May has stated that she wants the UK to leave both the single market and the customs union, a scenario which will be difficult for an outward-facing region like the North East. What kind of ‘managed divergence’ – to use a phrase from that Chequers away day – could help the businesses here to prosper after Brexit?

One possibility is an approach that uses alignment with EU structures, rather than full membership. This is set out in IPPR’s proposal for a ‘shared market.’ This would allow for a new and comprehensive customs union covering all goods, in which external tariff and trade policy matches the EU’s, but the UK is responsible for making its own free trade arrangements.

The details of how a successor to the Common Agricultural Policy will work are of huge importance both to the rural dwellers of Northumberland, County Durham and Teesside – as well as their urban neighbours. And the ‘Shared Prosperity Fund’ (promised in the 2017 Conservative Party Manifesto) remains an unknown quantity. Many in the region will wonder, with some justification, when public services will see the Brexit dividend described by the Leave campaign.

Perhaps what the North East needs most from Mrs May is a voice in all this.

The north, and other regions of the UK, need a seat at the table and an opportunity to state their distinctive visions of life outside the EU. That includes a meaningful input to discussions with the Commission, and also a say on how powers that come back to the UK can be passed to local areas, rather than hoarded in Whitehall. What the North East most needs Mrs May to say is, “I’m listening”. We also need her to mean it.