The Council has expressed its disappointment that Cornwall is set to receive just £18 million in Growth Deal investment over the next three years, despite being one of the poorest parts of the UK.

The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) had been encouraged to make “an ambitious” bid into the Growth Deal and consequently asked for £127 million.

Julian German, the Council’s portfolio holder for economy and culture, said: “Having encouraged Cornwall to put in an ambitious bid for funding, I am shocked that Government investment in Cornwall is so small.

“Numerous businesses across Cornwall spent time and money putting in compelling bids for investment in products, services and infrastructure, many of them will now be left disappointed.”

The funding settlement is significantly less than the previous Growth Deal allocation given to Cornwall and falls far short, says the Council, of the investment required if Government is going to ensure that Cornwall does not lose out when European funding ceases as a result of the UK leaving the EU. EU funding currently provides £60 million per year to develop vital local projects such as superfast broadband and business support.

German added: “In future I would encourage Government investment to take account of need. The current process forces Cornwall to compete for investment with more affluent places such as London, Birmingham, Bristol and the south east. It takes no account of our low earnings, poverty and rurality.”

“As a result of this announcement, the LEP will be forced to reduce the investment it was hoping to make in Cornish businesses.”

Cornwall Council said it will be reviewing its current list of economic development projects when more detail is known.

120 COMMENTS

  1. 1. Very poor bid by Cornwall and IoS LEP. Sack the lot of them.
    2. Government tightening the screws on those that need it most.
    3. If you don’t like it. Move.

  2. One of the arguments for funding being handed out by the EU rather than our own government was that the EU looked at such things ‘in the round’ and were far less susceptible to the biases and vested interest lobbying that drives national governments.

    As one of the largest recipients of EU aid, Cornwall was told all this during the referendum, but chose instead to focus on the ‘don’t tell us what to do – you don’t know anything about Cornwall’ rhetoric (some of which I see has also entered this thread).

    Well fine. Cornwall chose to go its own way, and now they’ll have to deal with the consequences of falling investment and even more lack of jobs, just like the rest of the country eventually will. It’s just that places that were already suffering from lack of funding will feel the pain first.

    I’m sorry for all those people in Cornwall that will suffer, but they only have themselves and their own communities to blame.

  3. A lot of City dweller Emmets being critical of Cornish for voting Brexcit and freedom. The people of Cornwall don’t need your patronising. When tourists from Lonon and Birmingham get their bill they will understand who is losing out.

  4. We’re a digital / cloud business based in Cornwall doing well but in no way thanks to funding. We’ve created employment in our area and are aiming to add more roles over the next two years.

    We tried hard to secure funding (via BIG / EU) but were basically told that digital businesses ‘need not apply’ as funding criteria was based on investing in plant / machines that create jobs.

    To add some balance, I should mention that we have received some funding for graduate development but the BIG funding, we were very much flagged as ineligible by decision makers.

    Digital businesses do not need machines or plant, we need people and talent for which there is no eligibility to receive funding under current guidelines. I suspect that there are many other businesses contributing to the digital economy in Cornwall that have also been thwarted and frustrated by the current funding rules.

    We build continue to build our business with organic growth (i.e. re-investing in growth from profits) and have ceased seeking funding in what seems to be a pointless and distracting exercise.

    I do feel for the businesses affected by these cuts. However, it has struck me that there is something not quite right about the existing funding mechanisms in Cornwall.

    This is just my informed opinion based on having spoken to many business and funding organisations in Cornwall over the last few years.

    There are many fine individuals working in funding organisations across the county. However, ask some of these people about the funding mechanism ‘fit for purpose’ and they will likely tell you the same thing (just not publicly though).

    Broken. Opportunity window to fix it is running out….

  5. Theresa May confirmed in October 2016 there’d be no more money for the NHS. She in fact told the NHS chief he had to make £22bn in savings.
    I feel sorry for Cornwall, the government were never going to honour £60m a year, but they were told before the referendum, and again after. What the people need to do now is let their elected representatives know their dissatisfaction with the situation, and if they’re of the mindset, that they’ve changed their minds and wish to remain in the EU.

  6. Newsflash for all the idiots on here gloating about Brexit – We’re still in the EU! We’re still in and we’re still paying, so Cornwall should still be getting its EU funding for the next two years. So what’s all the whinging and crying about?

        • Why do you think the EU allocated money to Cornwall? Because it’s one of the poorest regions in the EU. And why is that? Because the UK government does not invest in Cornwall. I am sure you can do the maths.

        • The government have already had to announce an extra £120bn of borrowing over the next 5 years… £450m a week. Where’s the money going to come from? Will they do more cuts to social services to pay money to Cornwall? Unlikely. If they were happy to pay the some amount over why haven’t they announced it and guaranteed it?

          • So just pessimistic wild-arsed speculation, then. Government borrowing at that level is nothing to worry about.
            Didn’t Cornwall get a massive investment in 2014-2015?
            What’s happenned to th EU money that doesn’t need replacing for another two years?

        • The government have doubled the national debt since 2010. Interest alone on that in 2015 was £655 million A WEEK! As has already been pointed out, this overhead is about to go up another £450 million a week. Where do you think the money will come from? We’re about to lose our biggest trade partner and our government will be spending £1.1 BILLION PER WEEK servicing the country’s debt!

        • The government has guaranteed (ha ha) continued funding for projects agreed before EU exit. It has guaranteed matched funding for agriculture until 2020. (Agri schemes could be a guaranteed project, funded beyond exit, until they end).
          There are no guarantees beyond that. Wales has already been told that they cannot expect the same funding as it got from the EU, but that they will get a ‘fair share’. Wales voted Leave.

        • The government doesn’t want to spend on the stuff the EU did, like paying farmers to ride their tractors. The EU only benefitted Cornwall, taking the taxes of people in the South East and lavishing it on she South West. This settlement is a sign of things to come.

  7. Suck it up Kernow, Brexit is about to get real for you. Leavers surely knew the amount of money they were about to lose though? All the info about a huge potential loss was out there before the vote and the £350M a week was debunked long before the vote too. I can only assume they actually wanted this shambles. They got their country back.

  8. I’m afraid you can’t trust the voters.
    We are a family of five, mostly graduates, we are relocating to Scotland and feel certain we are more secure in our desire to remain in the EU there.
    Many medical staff are also leaving England, the NHS had a wonderful 70 years but like most important things people don’t realise what they have until it’s gone.

  9. Majority of voters in Cornwall voted to take away my EU citizenship and to take away my children’s freedom of movement across the EU. Don’t ask for my taxes to replace EU funding when you realise that Tory brexiters lied to you.

  10. Mocking won’t help solve this. I voted remain, and yes the first gut reaction might be ‘schadenfreude’ but it is not the correct one. Councillors and MPs in Cornwall need to openly acknowledge and fight for the benefits of EU membership now – else Cornwall will suffer; and eventually the elected representatives will have to reckon with their voters.

    • Sadly I suspect it’s too late to stop the inevitable loss of funding coming Cornwall’s way.. The govt will be unable or rather unwilling to match EU funding for areas of poverty, farm subsidies, research funding and a whole raft of other areas where the EU made a genuine difference. I’m too sad about it all to even contemplate schadenfreude. 🙁

      • Why are you sad? It’s not like they were not told about what would happen. They wanted their country back, now they have it, food banks and all.

        • I think you’ll find foodbanks have been around for quite a while in Cornwall and throughout the UK – nothing to do with Brexit!! If so many ordinary people in Cornwall weren’t living in such poverty, as cost of living is high and wages low, poor infrastructure etc etc. then maybe more people would have seen the benefit of remaining in the EU! Rather than people judging and criticising from their ivory towers, try and have a little compassion and understanding!

          • Couldn’t agree more. Comments like Greta’s feed the idea at the Remainers will somehow be happy to see the country decline. Most are just sad and bemused that we could inflict such a possible hit on ourselves.
            Let’s hope we are wrong in our fears.

          • The EU had little to do with the poverty and low wages in Cornwall. This lies at the door of the government on the UK, who choose to underfund Cornwall. Same with food banks – they are a symptom of poor investment from London. For anyone to even attempt to say that if these things were better for Cornish people then they would have seen the benefit of the EU is disingenuous at best. If things had been better, the government would have taken the praise, but when things are bad, they blame the EU as does the right wing press etc. People need to think more for themselves and realise their situation is primarily due to austerity forced upon us all by the Tory regime.

          • I reserve my compassion for people who deserve it, such as the Poles who were attacked and hurt and Jo Cox’s relatives. All happened because of Brexit. Cornish people were told of what would happen and they accused as of being patronising. Fine. Since we are all adults, we should face the consequences of our actions. You may want to drive into a wall but should not then whine and moan when you find yourself in hospital with broken bones. As for food banks, I volunteer in a soup kitchen and have seen a sharp rise in guests ever since the Tories came back to power. The EU has bugger all to do with it.

          • Well said Cornered. As someone frim Cornwall who voted Remain myself, I can’t help thinking that had more Remainers adopted a more positive and respectful approach, rather than insulting, belittling, and being incredibly patronising towards anyone swaying towards Brexit, the end result may have been different. But sadly the insults continue…….Therefore should not a number of Remainers take their share of responsibility for the result. No doubt I’ll be shot down again by those very same people for suchan audacious comment!!

          • Leave voters gave out far worse. I lost count of the number of death threats, threats of violence, arson etc I received as well as the usual traitor and “we’re coming after you after the vote” nonsense I got in the run up to the referendum. The slightest hint of of EU support was met with extreme threats. Female friends were threatened with rape, which seems to be quite common on the internet, and worse.

          • I agree with you. Looking back I guess I wasn’t overly respectful to some Brexiters I met or conversed with online. That was because I just didn’t think anyone sensible would fall for the unsubstantiated promises, so I took it all as a bit of a joke (I don’t now), and then of course there was also always the vocal minority who really did appear to have unpleasant views.
            Silly me, if my attitude helped produce the result I didn’t want.
            Well, now I can only hope that I feel silly again due to Brexit turning to out bring the benefits that its supposed to.

          • In Cornwall, I personally didn’t witness any extreme reactions or any abuse from Brexiteers as some may have experienced further up country. And of course insults and abuse are not acceptable on either side! And if ever I did hear somewhat insular views from Brexiteers, I always tried to present a reasoned and balanced argument. I believe I even managed to change the opinions of some friends and acquaintances, who weren’t necessarily seeing the bigger picture. However I sadly did hear and see on social media insults flung at the ‘Cornish’, such as thick, uneducated, backwards, inbred etc., which as a Cornish person myself I found extremely annoying and upsetting as well as completely unjustified! I feel, had a less sanctimonious and less judgemental approach been taken by some Remainers, they would have managed to get more people onside! Let’s hope we were wrong and our future will look brighter. Only time will tell.

    • Yes, the Councillors and MPs need to be open about the realities of Brexit, rather than coming up with twaddle like identifying opportunities from Brexit as being (for the tourist industry) “building on international links and reputation” and “welcoming tourists from beyond Europe”, neither of which are things that Brexit makes any more possible than they always have been.

  11. It would probably work out better if ALL the Celtic Nations (Cornwall, Wales N Ireland & Scotland joined together and remained in the EU as a single bloc.
    With London turning itself into a City State and also remaining in the EU, it would be interesting to see how the United Kingdom of Sunderland and Lundy Island gets on on it’s own!

      • 60% of us does not include the 40% including me who did not vote to leave!

        Not most, more dumb yokels but not most…Grrr

        • Sorry not Grrr’ing at you mark, just annoyed that 60% of the stupid peoples decision will drastically affect what the 40% of us who had our brains in check must now suffer at the hands of idiots…We are not all turkeys down ere

  12. Although I’m a passionate Remainer I find myself feeling unexpectedly sorry for the Cornish. They’ve been trussed up like a kipper, if you’ll forgive the phrase. They bought into the Brexit bullshit, and now have lost out. And it’s totally predictable. HMG simply can’t be trusted to make up EU subsidy, wherever it comes. Now watch farming take the same hit.

    • I’ve lived in Cornwall almost 20 years, with 2 Cornish kids. All remainers to the core. Not all Cornish are for Brexit. I only know a handful who are! I do wonder if the counting systems were hacked?!

      • That may be the start of the process by which it ends up being impossible to find anyone who admits having voted leave.

        • There are plenty of people commenting on the Daily Mail and Daily Express sites who are proudly trumpeting the fact the voted for Leave – and guess what, despite being on the winning side of the referendum, none of them seem very happy bunnies.

    • Perhaps the cornish folk can cheer themselves up by a trip to London later this year to admire our new 18 billion quid crossrail system, crossrail 2 is now in the planning stage. Enjoy xx

  13. Statistically the poorest area in Western Europe, yet they vote Conservative and Brexit.
    All we need now is for another weak Conservative Government to hand over our fisheries as a sweetener for Europe to continue supporting the City of London.
    Weak – well they have always done whatever someone with a wad of cash asks them to do, there’s a 150 year history of it, did no one notice.

  14. Hahaha you voted to leave so you knew this would happen, hope you saved away enough money to live on. Don’t start complaining now, you voted for it just in case you forgot. 😉

  15. You could always try asking for some of that money advertised on the side of the bus if the NHS hasn’t spent it all, I suppose. That’ll meet the EU funding shortfall…

  16. Vote Leave, vote alt-right snowflakes, vote Farage, vote US billionaires looking to privatise the NHS, vote breitbart, vote against workers rights, vote against immigration, vote against subsidies to Cornwall.

    The info was there, buyers remorse sucks.

  17. The grim news of Brexit had to happen. After the euphoria of roaring lions and golden unions after June 23rd now comes cold, hard reality. Cornwall with suffer, so will the rest of the country. Brexit doesn’t have to happen. There are two years until the final deal is voted on. If public sentiment swings against Brexit as realism sets in, then that emboldens MPs across the house to speak up against it.

  18. Those posting here simply dont understand. The English people voted against Europe and to take back control. That is democracry Europe will no longer dictate where our money goes – we decided it is goes to the NHS and not wealthy businessmen.

    • Then you’re very gullible. Enjoy the suffering and don’t say you weren’t warned. Don’t blame anyone else but yourself. You refused to listen and now you’re getting exactly what we warned you about. You made your bed, you lie in it.

    • Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You must not be keeping up with the news. Didn’t you hear that they’ve all admitted the £350m for the NHS was a made-up, well,.. lie?

      • You really do not understand -the people have spoken -there was a majority of 37%. No going back on promises!

        • Leave promised 350 million a week saved for the NHS – not happening. Leave promised Cornwall equivalent funding to EU’s until 2020 at least – obviously not now happening. Leave campaigners like Dan Hannon promised leaving would not affect the UK’s single market access – May now says it will. Leave promised little or no negative effects, but you have a falling pound, rising inflation and the start of staffing shortages in key economic sectors. Leave promised inward investment, except it’s getting reading to go the other way. Since the referendum 100000 UK businesses have registered in Ireland in case they need to move, some northern Irish businesses have already moved production to the Republic and fintech and finance firms are getting reading to move operations: Barclays and Morgan Stanley this week confirmed they were moving European operations from London to Dublin and more are in the pipeline. You don’t believe in promises; you believe in fairy tales.

        • I´m not sure if you are playing devil´s advocate or if you are demonstrating why referendums are such a bad idea. You don´t seem to have grasped anything.

    • I think it’s you that doesn’t understand. It was the United Kingdom that voted, not just the English. And if you honestly think that wealthy businessmen won’t become richer from all the deals about to be struck you are living in a strange world in your head. The NHS will not get that money advertised on the side of that bus, that’s already been said. If anything the NHS is vastly underfunded and will soon be sold off to make it private. Your businessmen are about to get a lot richer on the backs of us working class.

      • Actually it was England and Wales that voted to leave Scotland and Northern Ireland are being dragged along with them against their will.

        • Bristol voted remain, as did Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Brighton, Cambridge etc. In fact, most major UK cities voted remain – more people than the population of Wales and Scotland combined. Including some of the most depirved inner city areas.

          Fact is it was primarily very wealthy, and very poor towns and countryside that voted leave. Cornwall voted majority to leave due to it’s unique mix of poor people living alongside posh t–ts telling them it’s everyone else’s fault.

      • It’s a complete fallacy to believe that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had any realistic influence – even if every person eligible to vote in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland had voted to remain, the English would still have carried the Leave decision.

    • Govt already confirmed in the A50 bill that the UK Govt always had sovereignty over the EU, and the £350M a week was debunked months before travelling vote.

  19. I believe the correct term is “Schadenfreude”, which is even better because it’s a foreign word which will make it even worse for the Leave voters.

    You were warned Cornwall, you ignored the warnings. Oh dear.

    • As someone from Cornwall that voted to stay. I was genuinely shocked by the fact that we voted out as a whole. Everyone I talked to said they were voting to stay, there was only 1 household on my entire estate that had “Vote leave” posters up.

      Our Government has never given a shit about this county, despite the fact that most of the rich lot probably have summer houses down here. The lies about fishermen being able to catch more if we left didn’t help either. Although I think the main demographic that voted out here were the old, and there’s a lot of old people that have retired down here.

  20. I voted remain as I thought it was common knowledge that we get more from the EU than we give them down here. There are plenty of signs around the big infastructure projects that state the EU has paid for them. Alas it seems that too many of my fellow Cornish either didn’t realise or chose to ignore the facts for the lies peddled by the leave campaign.

  21. Good. Let them suffer. Cornwall voted for Brexit. I want to see them have Brexit good and hard. I also want to see large cuts in health and pensions spending which are the two biggest costs, and this will hopefully finish off the old codgers who voted to get their country back. Call this nature’s way of weeding out the stupid people. If people are going to vote for suicide, we shouldn’t stop them. Let them eat lard.

    • As someone that has lived in Cornwall my entire life, and voted to remain. I’m fucked, I already live in the middle of buttfuck no where, took me over a year to find a supermarket job, and now even more businesses down here will be shutting down. All because of the old people who voted leave, whom this won’t even effect.

      My generation is royally fucked.

      • It wasn’t old people it was stupid people why do you think it was the deprived areas that were Brexit strongholds. Plenty of stupid in Cornwall. Enjoy your Brexit your people voted for it.

    • “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” H.L. Mencken.

  22. The people of Cornwall, just like the rest of the UK, were lied to by the Leave campaign. There won’t be any extra money to fund our essential services and our regions. If the Cornish are now starting to realise this, there is a way forward. You need to lobby your representatives, telling them you’ve changed your minds. Demand a second referendum with the option to remain in the EU. And above all, don’t vote UKIP, BLUKIP or REDKIP. Vote for the only party that has stuck to its internationalist principles during this whole sorry saga. Vote Lib Dem.

    • I agree and just so well put. Just wait till there is no change to the immigrations rules or none you would notice and all the people will click they bought a lemon.

    • As suggested by an earlier posting, shouldn’t the local politician come clean and explain the true consequences of Brexit to their local voters? Let the voters reconsider their voting intentions, then present it to the parliament?

  23. You were told about losing the EU subsidies, you chose to have faith in the charlatan snake oil salesmen of the leave campaign. Enjoy your 350m a week on the NHS and Government replacement of the EU money. No sympathy here, to echo previous posters…suck it up Cornwall

  24. Theresa Mayhem’s cunning plan is to replace Polish agricultural workers with poor Cornish folk, just like in the good ol’ days. As Norman Tebbit almost said, get on your bikes, and pick those vegetables and stop moaning you Brexit voters.

  25. Vote Brexit, vote stupid.

    With hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost to rEU, how exactly do the dim people of Cornwall think we are going to have money to pay for anything for them? Especially when Brexit is going to cost tens of billions, and we’re already hiring tens of thousands of very expensive government contractors to sort out the unholy mess, for years to come.

    Job losses + increased costs + reduced tax take = More Austerity

  26. It will be just like Poldark. I’m looking forward to seeing begging peasants, carts, donkeys and wreckers again. It will make an interesting historic 19c theme park.

  27. I am Spanish myself but living in the UK. No region in Spain that is currently receiving EU funds would dare voting to get out of Europe. I suppose that voting for Brexit wasn’t a wise deal. I reckon you have been conned. As for me, before anyone says anything nasty, I am on my way back to my country… after 15 years teaching here. I feel that I am not welcomed anymore, so…

    • We pay £55 million a day to belong to the EU, the second highest contributor. We can use that money on ourselves when we exit. Can you not understand this? It is easy to understand if you think about it. We are a nett contributor, unlike Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, and all the eastern european members.

      • Still believing that 55m a day are we Jeff? Doesn’t the fact your own county got £18m from a requested £127 tip you off to the fact that the government will not have this money to reinvest in the UK?

      • The Bank of England spent 3 years contributions ‘letting the pound down gently’ in the first two weeks after the referendum. Can you not understand this?
        The drop in the pound has increased debt payments to more than our EU contributions already and they are not going to stop for over 2 years anyway. You voted leave .. get your cheque book out you owe me .. and my kids.

      • Nonsense not only is that number a lie you’ve been told the per capita amounts the UK pays is one of the lowest contributors to the EU of the wealthy nations. There are 7 countries in the EU who pay more per capita than the UK. The 1% of taxes paid to the EU to ensure access to the world’s largest trading bloc is a fraction of the total tax paid to the Government. Tax payments to the EU are determined by how wealthy the country is and if the Brexit threats continue then the UK will drift to being a nett recipient as we get poorer as trade is abandoned due to the risks. So your choice – be a rich country and spend a fraction of the taxes on the EU or reject the EU and be a poorer country. You don’t have to believe the lies you’ve been told. Always compare per-capita payments to compare like for like.

      • The government COULD spend what they save in terms of contribution to the EU on aid to Cornwall, Wales etc. If there are any savings of course, which remains to be seen. However, from the article, if you had read it, it should have become clear that the government chooses NOT to do so. Your supposition is moot.
        This is not accidental. None of the regions that currently receive EU aid are electorally interesting to the Tories. To sustain themselves in power they need not fear alienating the voters that live there.
        This underlines a hard political truth that is as old as politics itself. That is that a fairly aloof, remote authority is far better than an overbearing local overlord. It is the reason the Scots think they would be better off as an independent nation in the EU than as a subject nation in the UK. Brussels is further away than London and that is not a merely geographical truth. Contrary to the perception pushed to the public by the Brexiteers and the tabloid press, Brussels doesn’t run the EU exclusively for the benefit of the centre, in contrast to Westminster which very much does precisely that.

      • Jeff, the country is going to be a lot poorer as businesses pull out of the UK, as many of the best people leave, as imports (like food and energy) ramp up in price. The government will have less not more money to spend.

        £55 million a day or any other figure isn’t going to happen. It’s fantasy.

      • I think we have found the only person left in the country who actually believed the Leave campaign about how much we pay to the EU

    • JC My mum is Spanish, but she does not qualify for permanent residence after over 60 years living here, working here and being a taxpayer here! (she’s now 80) – all because she went back to Spain for a couple of years to look after her dying mum. So I’m shutting down my business (paying tax of £40,000 a year) and selling my house… There are more than 3.3 million others who may do the same, many of them running businesses, providing work for others, or working in key jobs such as teaching and the NHS.

    • No community in Spain has voted against their openly corrupt Mayors and other administrators who are siphoning off those EU funds.
      So JC you are welcome to return to a country that epitomizes the EU.

      • Well, they have, Fred, they just don’t get in the news. Check out the ‘communist’ village in Andalucia. And Podemos’ 5 million votes from nothing. I agree in general that the Sp government is an inept bunch of dirty-fuel-loving freedom-hating dinosaurs, but that’s just the endemic stupidity and corruption. I live in Spain and won’t be moving. I just hope we ex-pats in Europe get some sort of consideration from the EU when it comes to our ‘punishment’.

  28. Cornish have had it too good for too long. Time they learned to stand on their own two feet without subsidy -we didn’t vote for Brexit to continue to give handouts.

    • Nonsense. We need a fare distribution of wealth. Areas which are economically strong should support those who aren’t. Your point just narrows done the myopia of Brexit even further. You vote to leave a benevolent trading bloc to,concentrate on the UK. But then you also want to split the UK even further, casting regions who are traditionally economically poorer to the wolves.

      The “I’m all right Jack” attitude is *not* what made Britain great.

      • It is fair to see people make an equal contribution, and not rely on subsidies. The people have voted for Brexit to see value for money. This applies to all regions and all sectors. Well it’s time for the handouts to stop -including farming subsidies. There will be new tax breaks for business to stimulate growth, so there will still be the encouragement to succeed.

        • Not all the sectors are equally important. I have to disagree with you. Some like food industry (including farming, fishing…), health and education, for example, need to be subsidised even if they are not profitable in strict economic terms, simply because a country cannot survive without food, health or education.

        • I disagree absolutely. You paint a picture of areas deliberately being reticent to look after themselves and sitting around waiting for handouts. The story here is that many businesses applied for this finding and were knocked back. It is this kind of funding that allows all parts of society to thrive. The narrow focus of conservatism on every man for himself merely rips apart society. Cohesive societies are benevolent and this lack of benevolence is precisely what we do not need, or areas whither and die and the populations just end up becoming reliant on welfare. Give a man arose and he’ll eat for a day. Give him a rod and teach him how to fish and he’ll dine forever. The UK suffers from concentrations of wealth, funding and opportunity in small areas, notably the south east and London. It is high time this was spread out.

          • Of course, give a man a *fish* rather than a rose. My autocorrect seems to think people can live on love alone.

    • When East Germany unified with West Germany, the East was poverty-stricken, its infrastructure was crumbling, and its businesses were uncompetitive.

      The West Germans had two choices. They could either adopt Charles Fish’s approach… Leave them to “learn to stand on their own two feet without subsidy”, or invest heavily to allow that part of the unified country to raise its standards to world level.

      They chose the later. And anyone who has visited the former East can attest to it being utterly transformed. Dresden is a stunning example. It puts most UK cities to shame. Germany as a whole benefited from what Charles Fish would call “handouts” to the East.

      Cornwall’s people need to find out what life under Theresa May’s post-brexit UK will be for them.

      • Rebuilding the DDR was a major act by the west, which added extra taxes in the Bundesrepublik, Most of the westerners were glad to pay that, to rebuild a country -though after a while, resentment set in.

        It’s not going to be the same when Cornwall or Wales comes cap-in-hand saying we’d like some money”, because the 350M has already been promised to the NHS, the farmers will want their money, the steel industry help to survive in a low-tarrif world. Then there’s whatever is in the Nissan Letter for Sunderland, universities the research funding and all the other mitigation measures. Paid for with a tax base which, if the city of London does start migrating, will be tangibly less.

        Cornwall is not going to be high on that list, and a new tax is going to be politically untenable. The leavers will protest “its not what you promised”, the remainers “we didn’t vote to leave, why tax us?”. So unless the fishing industry can get special treatment, yes, cornwall is in trouble. As is the rest of the country, albeit to a lesser scale

        If there is one silver lining, the sterling:euro exchange rate makes holidays abroad more expensive, and the UK potentially more appealing to the mainland —provided we can keep the Xenophobia locked down. Britain’s tourist industry and its period drama business may survive. The rest of us? Doesnt look so good.

    • I don’t remember the Leave campaign saying that “handouts” would stop, only that we would be more in control of where the handouts went. The impression was given that no-one would lose out, but that we would all be richer because we pay so much more to the EU than we get back.

      • Why then didn’t the government give the money directly to Cornwall instead of waiting for EU funding???? Didn’t you people ask yourself that vital question BEFORE the referendum????? Could it because they don’t care what happens to Cornwall? I think we have a winner!

        • I did ask the question, and reckoned there were too many unrealistic promises and assumptions. So I voted to remain.

  29. A good percentage of the money we give to the EU goes back into this country to support poorer areas like Cornwall.

    The Leave campaign didn’t tell you about that did they? But at least they said the money would go to the NHS – but it turns out they were lying about that.

    And the conservatives are theatening Europe with a low tax economy on their doorstep. That means you can kiss goodbye to funding from government and you can kiss goodbye to well funded schools and hospitals too.

    Brexit is a game where the wealthy have played puppetmaster to the british people via the media they own – the Sun, the Express and the Mail. The owners of these papers aren’t interested in you. You’ve been played like fools.

    Don’t you think you should be angry about this?

  30. They voted to leave the EU, essentially biting the hand that feeds them. Nobody could be stupid or naive enough to think they would get what they were before so it’s no good complaining now.

    • Exactly. The Nasty Party is not going to turn into the Nice Party. Cornwall voted to leave, and now they’re Moaning Brexiteers.

      Mayhem’s plan is to make the UK a tax haven. A tax haven is a place where there is next to no tax money to spend on public services. If anything, there will be far less tax money than at present. Hospitals, schools, social services, roads… Kaput.

      I never realised there were so many stupid people in this country.

  31. If the Conservative government continues in its push for a low tax, low revenue economy, I strongly doubt there will be any funding for Cornwall (or anywhere else) when EU funding ceases. The beneficiaries of the new UK order will be large corporations and rich oligarchs seeking to hide their cash here.

    2 lessons here. First, don’t vote Tory. They are not your friends (nor are UKIP). Secondly, don’t vote to leave the EU, which is a huge donor to the south western economy…too late for that now, but do make sure the Lords and your MPs know your opinion. Write to them now. Ensure parliament and you have a say in the final deal or we’ll all end up on the breadline.

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