Gordon Brown: We need a Brexit deal that heals the north-south divide

By giving more power to the regions, we can create a confident, more equal and outward-looking Britain

It's official. The north-south divide in Britain is now wider than at any time since the beginning of the industrial revolution - wider than when Charles Dickens was writing about Victorian squalor, and wider than in the depression years of the 1930s, when George Orwell exposed the grinding poverty of northern England in The Road to Wigan Pier.

Remarkable new evidence from a study by the academic Philip McCann, The UK Regional-National Economic Problem, shows that while economic output per head, measured by gross value added, is near 43,000 a year in London - and as high as 135,000 in inner west London - almost half the UK population lives, in regions where output per head is below 22,325.

Nothing the chancellor's autumn statement can offer will be sufficient to bridge this divide

Related: Brexit would widen the north-south divide as poorest areas stand to lose most | Peter Hetherington

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