‘Bite the bullet and give Wales the cash it needs’
AHARD-HITTING report today urges the UK Government as Brexit looms to abandon the controversial formula used to allocate Treasury cash to Wales.
A cross-party report on the impact of Brexit on devolution states: “Brexit means that it is now time finally to bite the bullet and replace the Barnett formula with a needs-based funding arrangement.”
The report from the House of Lords’ EU Committee was welcomed by First Minister Carwyn Jones, who said there was “an overwhelming case for a major and immediate revision” of the formula, which critics say has underfunded Wales.
Today’s report lays bare the risks posed by Brexit to Wales, warning that the “Welsh economy is highly reliant on membership of the EU single market”.
The peers warn that manufacturing and agriculture are particularly vulnerable.
They also caution the UK Government against attempting to “use Brexit to make a power grab”.
WALES could do well with Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street and the UK outside the constraints of the European Union, a Harvard professor famed for making the left-wing case for Brexit has argued.
Leading Welsh Labour figures have warned of the dangers facing the nation as a result of Brexit but Professor Richard Tuck argues that a government led by Mr Corbyn without the constraints of EU membership might result in Wales doing “rather well”.
He has made the case that the “great prize” for left-wingers in the UK is “genuine Brexit followed by a Labour government”.
The professor claims that once the UK leaves the EU a whole range of policies including nationalisation that would be difficult to implement within the union would be back on the table.
Prof Tuck is adamant that leftwing MPs should not join with Conservatives to try to keep Britain in the single market or attempt to block Brexit.
He said: “If I am right in supposing that this new surge in leftwing politics is the result of Brexit, it would be suicidal to overturn it.”
Wales is due to receive more than £2bn in European structural funds investment between 2014 and 2020 but Professor Tuck suggested that the nation might benefit more from the policies Mr Corbyn could
launch if he was PM and the UK was outside the EU.
At an event held by the Policy Exchange think-tank, he said: “I think myself that Wales might do rather well under a Corbyn government at Westminster and none of the constraints on a Corbyn government that the EU currently imposes. I think they would do better than they would with the flow of money that comes from the EU...
“It’s not an enormous amount of money. People get sort of fixated on these sums.”
Membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) has been put forward as an option to allow the UK to stay in the single market while a final deal is hammered out, but the professor cautioned that “if there is one safe generalisation in politics, it is that temporary arrangements usually become permanent”.
Urging Labour to “keep its nerve”, he said: “The great prize awaiting the Left in Britain, and it is now almost within reach, is genuine Brexit followed by a Labour government. Then the Left can re-enact whatever it thinks is good in EU regulations about such things as the environment and working conditions, and whatever immigration policy it wishes, and at the same time free itself from the far-reaching restrictions which the EU imposes on traditional socialism.”