Brexit and regional development in the UK: what future for regional policy after structural funds?

The results of the EU referendum showed profound spatial differences in opinion across the UK. Inequality has been widely discussed as a major factor explaining these differences, with some of the highest shares of the Leave vote in areas experiencing greatest economic difficulty, especially in northern England and Wales. However, a once powerful domestic UK-wide regional policy has largely withered away, and the one policy that maintained over the long term - EU Structural Funds – which - will be phased out as part of Brexit. This provides a challenge and an opportunity to the UK Government and to the Devolved Administrations in a spatial context where the UK is the most unequal developed country in the UK. This chapter reviews the research evidence for the importance of territorial inequality in the outcome of the EU referendum, and then discusses the role and importance of Structural Funds in the UK, past and present, before considering the future of domestic approaches to regional and local development.