In England, the term North–South divide refers to the cultural, economic, and social differences between Southern England and Northern England:

Southern England usually refers to South East England and in some definitions, The East Of England, including Greater London. Northern England usually refers to North East England, Yorkshire and the Humber and North West England including Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

There is also the central region of the Midlands which historically was administered by the Kingdom of Mercia whose borders were defined by the Mersey, the Humber, the Severn and the Thames as shown by its flag, a saltire cross. Counties in the north of the area, such as Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland and Staffordshire are sometimes seen as Northern. A grouping of "Central England" based on European parliamentary constituency boundaries combined the Midlands and East Anglia until the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union in January 2020.

The cultural, economic, and social disparities between the north and the south are reflected in English politics. Between the early 20th century and 2019, the Labour Party was the dominant political party in the north and the Conservative Party was dominant in the south. The 2019 general election is sometimes described as a great political realignment as a result of Brexit, with north moving significantly towards the pro-Brexit Conservatives and away from Labour who were split on the issue of Brexit. However, Danny MacKinnon, Professor of Regional Development and Governance at Newcastle University, noted that Labour's vote share in the north outside of metropolitan areas had declined consistently since 2001, with the exception of 2017.

An article in The Economist published in 2012 argued that the gap between the north and south in life expectancy, political inclinations and economics trends was growing to the extent that they were almost separate countries.

Definition and criteria

The North–South divide is not an exact line, but one that can involve many stereotypes, presumptions and other impressions of the surrounding region relative to other regions. There is considerable debate between scholars over the degree of difference. For example, a Cambridge Econometrics report of March 2006 found that economic growth above the UK average was occurring only in the South and South East England, whilst North East England showed the slowest growth. The same data has been interpreted otherwise to indicate only a very small difference. Indeed, results are highly dependent on the categories chosen for evaluation. As a generalisation, the following tend to indicate that there is some sort of north–south divide:

Health conditions, which are generally seen as being worse in the north, though spending on healthcare is higher. House prices, which are higher in the south, particularly the south-east. Average earnings, which are significantly higher in the south and east. Political influence. Public investment in London and the south-east per person in the five years to 2019–20, was 50% more than that in the North.

However, when factors such as the cost of living or urban poverty are included, the divisions are sometimes less clear. Some commentators have suggested that other divisions, such as class or ethnicity might be more important.

The Economist claims that one of the main causes of the divide was the migration of young professionals from the north to work in London, whereas it is much less common for young professionals from the south to move to a northern city. The Institute for Public Policy Research published the "State of the North 2019" report, from IPPR North, which blames regional inequality on power centralisation and the lack of devolution. The report showed that the UK has larger regional divisions than any other country at a comparable level of economic development.

The Northern Independence Party was founded in October 2020, with the intention of fixing the north–south divide by gaining independence for the North of England.

Identities and differences

Culture

There is a perceived cultural divide in England between the north and the south.

When the commercial broadcaster Granada Television began transmission in 1956, it was primarily based in Manchester. Granada's strapline before both networked and regional programming was originally "From The North, Granada Presents...". A large arrow pointing Upward (North) was part of this caption. Granada Television's 1960s updated arrow (a G with an upwards arrow) was prominent on local idents and production until GranadaTV's identity was divided between the ITV Granada and Granada Productions (later ITV Studios) brands as part of the creation of ITV plc in 2004.

Counterbalancing the image of the rich South/poor North divide are television programmes like Cold Feet, which feature Yuppie-esque, rich or upper-class Northerners, a deviation from the stereotypical North. Meanwhile, Only Fools and Horses is based around working-class life in Peckham.

Statistics suggest that the consumption of fast food appears to be higher in the North of England, with the UK's fourteen "fattest cities" to the north or west of the dividing lines detailed above.

The 2005 BBC Two interview series It's Grim Up North and subsequent book by Judith Holder attempted to tease out some of these divisions. While those in the north complained of having fewer cultural opportunities, the book also provided a view of southern life as faceless and bland.

Politics In 2013, two articles in The Economist argued that the divide between the left-leaning North and the right-leaning South could not be explained by economic fortunes alone. For example, the affluent suburban constituency of Wirral South was held by Labour, whereas deprived seaside towns in Thanet were represented by the Conservatives. One of the articles compared England's North–South divide to the divide between Northern and Southern Italy. It argued that Italy had a stronger economic divide, whereas England had a stronger divide in voter behaviour. The latter divide has been made starker by the first past the post voting system, which has caused Labour's representation in the South and (until the 2019 general election) the Conservatives' representation in the North to both be far weaker than their actual levels of support.

The journalist Kelvin MacKenzie suggested in 2012 that the South of England needed a political party to campaign for its interests, including "home rule" for the region. City A.M. editor Allister Heath had made a similar suggestion in April 2012, and opined that increased powers for the London region might be obtained when the constitutional status of Scotland is debated.

The north–south divide has also been observed in the Brexit referendum of 2016, with the North leaning Brexit and the South being less supportive with strong support for remaining in the European Union seen in London and the South East.

In 2019, many traditionally Labour seats in the so-called red wall were won by the Conservatives, many for the first time. Historically, constituencies in the North Midlands and Northern England tended to vote for the Labour Party. It is noteworthy the erosion of the Labour Party vote in the north and midlands began in the 2001 general election, with a continual trend of decline until 2017. However, the trend returned strongly in 2019. In 2014, political scientists Matthew Goodwin and Robert Ford documented the erosion by UKIP of the Labour-supporting working-class vote in their book, Revolt on the Right.

In 2021, the Conservative government launched a Levelling up policy to address the North–South divide as part of a broader objective. In September 2021 the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government was renamed the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities under Secretary of State Michael Gove, and a Levelling Up Taskforce was created to define the policy in more detail.

Language and dialect Although younger generations may be less likely to use speech that is specific to a particular town, there is still a clear difference between north and south; young Northerners are more resistant to sounding as if they are Southern than sounding as if they are from a different Northern town.By 'eck! Bratford-speak is dyin' out

The division is sometimes used for comedy, but has its serious side as well. The London media are sometimes claimed to look down upon those with northern English accents. For example, Ken Livingstone (a Londoner) suggested that the press's unsympathetic treatment of John Prescott was partly because he is one to "speak like ordinary people".

Some linguistic research has concluded that many people in the North of England have a dislike of the vowel in BATH words. AF Gupta wrote, "Many of the northerners were noticeably hostile to , describing it as 'comical', 'snobbish', 'pompous' or even 'for morons'."Baths and Becks, AF Gupta in English Today, page 25, Cambridge University Press, 2005 On the subject, K. M. Petyt wrote that several respondents "positively said that they did not prefer the long-vowel form or that they really detested it or even that it was incorrect"KM Petyt, Dialect and Accent in Industrial West Yorkshire, page 286, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1985 Mark Newbrook has assigned this phenomenon the name "conscious rejection", and has cited the BATH vowel as "the main instance of conscious rejection of RP" in his research in the West Wirral.West Wirral: norms, self-reports and usage, page 101, Urban Voices, edited by Paul Foulkes & Gerard Docherty, Arnold, London, 1999

Religion

Within the Church of England, there is the Province of York in the North and the Province of Canterbury in the Midlands and the South. While this has a separation of sorts, it is not a North–South divide, as the Midlands is included. The North was also a stronghold of religious Nonconformism during its industrial heyday.

In the 18th century people in the North were also much more likely than those in the South to remain Catholic. Data from 1715 to 1720 shows that the most Catholic counties were all in the North, and the least Catholic counties were all in the South. With the exception of the southern county of Sussex, which had a higher proportion of Catholics, all intermediate counties were in the Midlands, and, except for Sussex, a line from the River Severn to The Wash marked a divide between more Catholic and less Catholic counties.

Explanation Industrial decline is most usually given as an explanation for the north–south divide. During the Industrial Revolution, many northern cities underwent a process of intense industrialisation, as raw materials such as coal and iron ore could be found in these areas.Population growth in Victorian Manchester: This led to comparatively high wealth; Shaw, Greater Manchester reportedly had the highest concentration of millionaires in the country at the time. It also led to heavy reliance on a few key industries and, as heavy industry began to leave the UK for developing countries under the 'New international division of Labour', these areas declined rapidly. Events like the UK miners' strike (1984–85) polarised public opinion and led to an increase in the divide.

Potential historical reasons for the divide include the influence of Scandinavian rule in the latter centuries of the first millennium CE, with much of the cultural differences of the north–south divide coinciding with the borders of the Danelaw. The Economist proposed in a 2017 article that the origins of the north–south divide could be traced back to the Norman Conquest, and the Harrying of the North in which William the Conqueror laid waste to many towns and estates in the North. This significantly reduced the wealth of the northern half of the country, laying the foundations for centuries of economic disadvantage.

The Midlands