Welsh Government minister says he welcomes independence debate

A Welsh Government minister has said that he welcomes a debate about independence, but said that it should not be the only option on the table.

Jeremy Miles MS, the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition, admitted that he knows Labour supporters who are members of YesCymru.

He was speaking on the S4C current affairs programme Pawb a’i Farn.

The show’s presenter Betsan Powys asked Mr Miles is Labour members had been pressuring him to go further than he wished to.

He answered: “Well I know members of the Labour Party who are members of YesCymru so that’s certainly true that’s happening.

“I welcome a debate on Wales’ constitutional future – I always have. It’s an opportunity for all of us to scrutinise each other’s positions, and we need to be disciplined in making the argument in a way that’s persuasive, not just on broad principles, and each one of us has difficult questions to answer in that context.

“Therefore, I welcome this debate. It’s certainly what I want to see, and I’m prepared to make the argument for that. But we can’t just say that this is the only option. We need to have a much fuller debate about that is appropriate for the challenge in front of us.”

‘Better job’

A YouGov poll has suggested 51 per cent of those who voted Labour in the 2019 General election would vote for Welsh independence.

Another YouGov poll commissioned by grassroots pro-independence group YesCymru has put support for independence in Wales at 33 per cent. The figure stood at 22 per cent in early December 2019.

YesCymru member Aled Gwyn Williams who was also on the programme, said: “The news members we have, they’re not the nationalists you would expect. They don’t wave flags, they’re not members of Plaid Cymru a lot of them. A lot of them are people who would feel more comfortable in the Labour Party.

“But they’re people who want a good government and want good governance and we’ve seen Wales doing that. for the first time perhaps, Wales is more visible.

“We’ve seen Wales going its own way and doing a much better job with much clearer messaging than we’ve had from the UK Government. That’s something that a lot of people have told me recently. It isn’t possible to reform the UK – it’s over.