First Minister Mark Drakeford has warned the UK could split unless it is recreated as a "solidarity union". In an interview with The Guardian Mr Drakeford said such a union would protect every citizen's fundamental rights such as to affordable public services and trade union protections.
"In order to persuade people in all parts of the United Kingdom that their futures lie together within a restructured United Kingdom we have to recreate a solidarity union," he said. "We have to rebuild the safety net, so you know that your membership of the United Kingdom entitles you to that collective security that it represents."
Mr Drakeford said decades of Tory neoliberalism, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, had been a "sustained assault on the notion that citizenship means rights". He told The Guardian: "If you move from Scotland to Wales you know that you will take those fundamental rights with you as part of your citizenship. Those have all been eroded progressively by Tory governments, particularly since 1979.
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“The next Labour government needs to rebuild those rights, to do it explicitly, and to say to people: 'This is what you get – that’s why it is worth belonging [to the UK].'" The Welsh Labour leader argued that the internal trade rules imposed by the Tories in London, and their failure to recognise Wales' and Scotland's autonomy over health policy during the pandemic, had revealed their "fundamental disrespect" for the Welsh and Scottish parliaments since Brexit.
However he noted that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had shown greater respect towards the devolved nations though he said this didn't "translate into very practical effects". He added: "What we should do is think of a United Kingdom in which sovereignty rests in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and then we choose voluntarily to pool that sovereignty back for certain important key shared purposes.”
He said Labour was needed to guarantee public utilities and services operated in the public interest. "I am not arguing at all for an old-fashioned 1945 nationalisation programme [but] since the public invests huge amounts of money in bus services, train services, and water services it is entitled to a better return on that investment,” he said. "We have to find new ways that suit the 21st century to make sure that when decisions are made the voice of the public is at the table to assert those interests – and that you get that by being members of the United Kingdom."
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