As anyone who hails from a place that has had its boundaries redrawn will know, there is an awkwardness and even sadness of having to relearn where you are from.

After all, as the old adage goes, an Englishman’s home is his castle… and he most certainly likes to know where he resides.
Yet while some are still mourning county changes of half a century ago, thanks to the Labour Party many more of these emotionally charged disputes lie on the horizon.

And that’s because Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is the latest in a long line of politicians intent on redrawing the map of this green and pleasant land.

The Housing Secretary wants every region of England to get a mayor and to give them more powers over housing, transport, education and employment to help drive economic growth.

She also wants to merge areas where there are currently two tiers of local authority – smaller district and larger county councils – to streamline services and, of course, cut costs.

But the body representing district councils has warned the plans could spark “turmoil” and argues “mega-councils” undermine local decision-making.

Indeed, Rayner’s plan has already thrown several local authorities into disarray, with some making clear they do not wish to be “merged”, while other bodies are annoyed that they have not been added to Rayner’s fast-track devolution stream, announced earlier this month.

Take Lancashire where 15 councils have been told to reorganise themselves into three or four local authorities to better serve their populations by March.

The plans have been met with dismay by Ribble Valley Council leader Stephen Atkinson who says it will “result in money flowing from the rural areas into the cities and places like Ribble Valley [being] the cash cows.”

In Gloucestershire, there is unease too after the county was denied approval to delay its May 2025 local elections by one year.

Councillor Stephen Davies, leader of the county council, supports a unitary authority over the current two-tier model but said he was “disappointed” his area had not been selected among Labour’s six for the reorganisation fast track programme, which will see mayors elected by May 2026.

A statement from the Conservative group at Gloucester’s Shire Hall said: “Starmer’s Labour Government has confirmed that Gloucestershire will not be included in the first tranche of local government reform, denying our county much-needed investment.”

Of course, battle lines over boundaries are nothing new.

Indeed spare a thought for residents still fighting for the reemergence of certain administrative counties decades after they were dissolved.

Middlesex is one example: many say the county no longer even exists after it was absorbed into a larger Greater London area in 1965. Yet the Post Office doesn’t agree, nor do the loyal residents who still call it home.

Equally, ask a resident in Havering where they are from and they may well tell you: “If I say Essex, it’s not strictly true, but if I say London, that’s not factually correct either.”

Which may also be true of the residents of East Riding who went to bed one night in 1974 and woke up the following morning in Humberside. The difficulty is palpable. How can you not know where you are from?

Many still contend that the historic counties of England represent the true divisions of the land and that the current boundary changes present the best opportunity to reintroduce them.

Daily Express astrologer Russell Grant, president of the Middlesex Federation, says: “What we want to see from Angela Rayner is an acknowledgement of the historic counties, not to disregard that history. Counties like Middlesex, Sussex, Essex etc are older than England itself.”

Born in Harefield, Middlesex, Grant remembers the Middlesex crest on his school exercise books and the Welcome to Middlesex signs.

He recalls discussing the issue with the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. “She said to me, ‘Parliament didn’t create the historic counties and cannot take them away.’”

When Grant created the Middlesex Federation he found thousands of people were up in arms that their beloved home county was swallowed up into various Greater London boroughs.

“None of the political parties have had the foresight to see the historic counties are the true fabric of Britain,” he says.
Grant suggests the Government should maintain the ceremonial role of the historic counties and has the radical idea of the House of Lords as an elected chamber based on those counties.

Meanwhile Andy Strangeway, a campaigner for greater recognition of England’s counties, believes historic counties “matter more to those who don’t belong to the metropolitan elite.”

Andy, a decorator and adventurer, says: “On 1 April 1974 I was a young lad who had gone to bed the previous night in the East Riding and woke up in Humberside – or so the powers that be like us to believe.

“The truth is that the River Tees is still the boundary between Yorkshire and County Durham and the River Humber is still the boundary between Yorkshire and Lincolnshire today as it has been for over 1,100 years.”

Andy believes lots of people in Britain feel exactly as he does: “People feel anger, hatred and disenfranchisement when they are ‘moved’ from an historic county they are part of, to an administrative one that has no cultural heritage or meaning to them. It is important to be part of that you belong to as it is embodied in your DNA.

“If this is dissolved, part of you is removed and your identity is in some way eroded. In essence, human beings require a feeling of belonging which is fulfilled with historic counties.”

Peter Boyce, chairman of the Association of British Counties, a society dedicated to celebrating and promoting the 92 historic counties of the United Kingdom states that Rayner’s current plans may wipe certain historic counties off the map for a second time.

“At least some of the remaining fake 1974 ‘counties’ may disappear,” he says.

Historic Rutland was controversially merged with neighbour Leicestershire in 1974 but reemerged as a unitary authority in 1995 following a public campaign.

Now England’s smallest county with a population of 41,000 could disappear once again thanks to the Labour Government’s reorganisation.

While the Commons has been assured that the proposals will not “directly impact the borders or status of ceremonial counties”, local Conservative MP Alicia Kearns has written to Angela Rayner demanding a “guarantee [that] would reassure Rutlanders that our identity will not be lost as collateral damage from any wider reform.”

Chaz Ellis, whose father campaigned for Rutland’s independence in the 1990s, recently told the Telegraph: “It’s frustrating to think that Rutland’s autonomy might be dismissed as inconsequential once again. Historic counties are not arbitrary lines, they are the result of generations of shared traditions, heritage and community.”

Since returning to office in July, Labour has announced four devolution deals: Greater Lincolnshire, Hull and East Yorkshire, Devon and Torbay and Lancashire.

But Lord Michael Heseltine, who has been advocating for devolution for decades and was the architect of the 1972 Local Government Act that created the new metropolitan counties, isn’t happy with the suggestions.

Like many others no doubt, he thinks Yorkshire should be one unitary authority, explaining: “It should all just be Greater Yorkshire, Essex should be just Essex. One county authority. Currently it has three.”

He adds: “We do not need hundreds of districts, that is for certain. It blurs responsibility. We got rid of them in Scotland and Wales in the 1990s and no one misses them, no one has asked for them back.”