The UK wouldn’t accept the pain necessary to start making things again just like we were never going to accept the changes needed to make Brexit a success.
Rather than taking an introverted look at political power, money and devolving English power from Westminster, in a similar manner as the NI, Scott and Welsh nations to fund investments outside of London.
Perhaps looking at national infrastructure, and agreeing what we want to see in towns and cities then using tax incentives to encourage desired behaviour.
Or we could just blame Europeans for British political decisions. That's been working well.