Welsh Tories accuse Drakeford of ‘flirting with hostile nationalism’
The Welsh Tories have accused Mark Drakeford of “flirting with a divisive and hostile nationalism”.
Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for the Constitution, Darren Millar MS was responding to comments made by the Labour First Minister on the future of the UK in an appearance in front of a House of Lords Committee.
Drakeford said that the UK is “sleepwalking” towards the end of the Union if the UK Government does not change its attitude towards devolution.
He added that the current UK Government was the first in his political career that was “actively hostile” to the Welsh Government and Senedd.
But according to Darren Millar, the First Minister should not be focusing on “constitutional change”.
He said: “Labour’s First Minister is flirting with a divisive and hostile nationalism.
“The people of Wales want him to focus on our recovery from the pandemic, not constitutional change.
“Labour’s priority should be protecting jobs, tackling unacceptably long waiting lists and improving our education system in Wales – not stoking fear about the future of the United Kingdom.”
‘Confrontational approach’
At the committee hearing Mark Drakeford said that the UK Government had shown a “confrontational approach – an approach of muscular unionism. Aggressively unilateral in the way that it goes about things”.
“The union is under the greatest pressure it has ever been in my political lifetime,” he said.
“With the current UK Government, we face for the first time in the history of devolution a government that is instinctively hostile to devolution.
“We’ve never worked with a government that is instinctively hostile to the notion of devolution. It certainly doesn’t have to be like that – it hasn’t been like that for most of the 20 years of devolution.
“We are sleepwalking if we’re not careful into the end of the union as we know it.”
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As opposd to hostile colonialism eh Miller?
I just wish he really was ! Tories continue to engage with, not flirt with, Anglo Brit supremacist sentiment.
“Hostile nationalism” or “understandable desire for freedom”?
The hostile One Nation crowd really don’t like people having differing opinions to them eh? They even rage at people for wearing Covid masks they don’t like!
The Conservatives certainly like to spend a lot of time telling us what “the people” want the government to focus on.
If they’re so in tune with the Welsh public as they like to suggest, then why didn’t they win a majority last election?
Empty vessels make the most noise, and it seems the Tory party are getting louder.
Sleepwalking? No. A growing number of Cymry are marching towards a better future in an #indywales, with our eyes wide open!
Yes, and this “hostile nationalism” comes from over the border.
That’s funny a Tory moaning about someone else being nationalistic ! lol
This house of lords committee are there any Welsh Lords on it? Or as it is about devolved government are they barred from uttering a word on behalf of Wales? I struggle to see a purpose for them in that case.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Chair)LabourBaroness CorstonLabourBaroness DooceyLiberal DemocratBaroness DrakeLabourLord DunlopConservativeLord FaulksNon-affiliatedBaroness FookesConservativeLord Hennessy of NympsfieldCrossbenchLord Hope of CraigheadCrossbenchLord Howarth of NewportLabourLord Howell of GuildfordConservativeLord Sherbourne of DidsburyConservativeBaroness Suttie Liberal Democrat.
Is this the Darren Millar who condemned the Labour Welsh Government for “abandoning” their pre-election pledge to invest millions in key roads across North Wales?
Maybe he should be addressing his concerns to his own party?
If NC’s comments are anything to go by, “hostile nationalism” is too mild a term. These raging loons are constantly whipping themselves up into an incandescent, self-pitying frenzy or manufactured outrage, fueled by an entirely false view of history. I weep for the future of Wales if these people get their way. Thankfully, they’re still a small, if loud, minority.
Modern Welsh nationalism is internationalist, where as British nationalism is exceptionalist. The loss of my European Citizenship forced me to choose my national identity, something I had not bothered to do in sixty years. The small, loud minority gained another member not because of some fuzzy, warm belief in druids but because I saw what Britishness was becoming, something reactionary and odious. The Wenglish and the Cymry are uniting to protect our country because of the existential threat from new aggressive British nationalism.
Nicely put…
I expect that you are still smarting from the comments of the other day…