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Future Labour UK Government will ensure devolution can’t be rolled back, says Drakeford

25 Oct 2022 2 minute read
First minister of Wales Mark Drakeford. Picture by Peter Byrne / PA Wire

A future UK Government will make sure that devolution can’t be rolled back, Mark Drakeford has said.

Answering a question by Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price, he said that a report on the constitutional future of the UK by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown had found “practical ways” of ensuring devolution couldn’t be overruled.

Adam Price had said that an unelected Prime Minister in Rishi Sunak had “supremacy” over the wish of the Welsh public who had twice voted for devolution.

But Mark Drakeford said that after the next election “there will be an opportunity I hope for an incoming Labour government to do exactly what Adam Price has said, to entrench devolution”.

“So they cannot be rolled back in the way that we have seen since 2019,” he said.

“I think there are a series of practical ways in which that can be done and when the Gordon Brown report on the future arrangements of the United Kingdom is published, I think we will see a number of those practical ideas.

I’m not going to rehearse them this afternoon necessarily, but they are there.

“They are there in ways in the guarantee that the things that have been endorsed in referendums by people in Wales can be delivered without the risk that they’re always under pressure being rolled back.”

‘Pendulum’

Adam Price had said that there was an “unanswerable case” for a General Election.

“But the truth is that the Prime Minister’s Sunak is free to ignore that as he is free to ignore you and the UK Constitution concentrates huge power in the hands of the PM which explains the mess,” he said.

“The doctrine of Westminster supremacy means the new prime minister is free to repeal any act of the Senedd and revoke any power even though he has no mandate to do so sitting up here in Wales.

“Now, the political pendulum may swing at the next election whenever it comes. But how can we stop being in exactly the same position in the years to come? When the pendulum swings back?

“How do you propose an incoming Labour government would entrench our Welsh democracy in a political system where Westminster reigns supreme?”


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Y Tywysog Lloegr a Moscow
Y Tywysog Lloegr a Moscow
2 years ago

Oh really?

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Neil Anderson
Neil Anderson
2 years ago

And that it cannot be rolled forward either?

The Original Mark
The Original Mark
2 years ago

Funny comment to make, considering Starmer is no fan of Devolution.

Mark
Mark
2 years ago

No Westminster government will empower the devolved nations.

Gareth
Gareth
2 years ago

With no written constitution, everything, and that means everything, is at the whim of the sitting gov. Not even the legal system of the UK is safe from change, so how Labour will perform this minor miracle is to be seen.eg Dont like devolution, create the internal market act. Power is invested in the UK parliament to create or abolish any law.

Adrian Meagher
Adrian Meagher
2 years ago

Never mind protecting devolution from being rolled back, a nebulous if worthy concept. How about something specific like UK Labour committing to making St. David’s Day a Bank Holiday?

Crwtyn Cemais
Crwtyn Cemais
2 years ago

If Englishman Keith Starmer as Leader of the British Labour Party becomes Prime Minister after the next UK General Election, I can’t but feel that Welsh and Scottish Devolution, already deliberately weakened by the current English-nationalist Brexiteer Tory government, will be sidelined and left in its weakened state by a British Labour government . I have no confidence in a British Labour Party – its priorities dominated, as ever, by English interests and concerns – protecting or advancing Welsh and Scottish Devolution. A coalition government of Labour and Lib Dems, would be a safer bet for Devolution. With the First-Past-The-Post… Read more »

Quornby
Quornby
2 years ago

“I hope” hymph.!!!!!

Doctor Trousers
2 years ago

The party that screwed Scotland out of devolution the first time it voted for it in 1979 can be trusted to ensure it can’t be rolled back?
b******s, frankly.
There is only one kind of home rule that can’t be snatched away by westminster, and that’s full independence. That’s our starting point to get to the consensual, sharing union of equally valued nations that Mark Drakeford likes to imagine the union can be.
We don’t get there through any westminster government telling us what powers we’re “allowed” to have.

Dai Rob
Dai Rob
2 years ago

That could be enough, maybe, to swing vote to them!!

David
David
2 years ago

Don’t believe a word Gordon Brown says. Remember the VOW at the time of the Scottish referendum ALL LIES.

SundanceKid
SundanceKid
2 years ago
Reply to  David

As soon as there is a Labour Government in Westminster, our own government will quietly drop any more demands for “constitutional reform”.

SundanceKid
SundanceKid
2 years ago

This is absolute nonsense! There is no way of guaranteeing that devolution cannot be overruled while one country holds the balance of power!

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