Carwyn to host Labour summit in bid to stop UK breaking apart
FIRST Minister Carwyn Jones will convene a gathering in Cardiff of some of the biggest names in Labour in Scotland and the English regions in a bid to ensure the United Kingdom does not fall apart as a result of Brexit.
The summit is expected to feature figures including former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale as well as mayors and mayoral candidates.
The goal is to “start working on an alternative for the UK that keeps the UK together”.
He said: “For some years now I’ve been advocating a constitutional convention. Why? Because I think there’s clearly a threat to the UK and I want the UK to stay together.
“There are some in the UK Government who get this, but most of them just have no understanding of the kind of debates we’ll have to have post-Brexit about the distribution of power within the UK.”
Major discussions must take place, he argues, so the UK can agree a common approach to issues such as agriculture and fisheries that have until now been governed by EU regulations.
He is also determined to avoid the potential for a “trade war” among the UK nations.
The Bridgend AM said: “The state aid regime disappears when we leave the EU. What happens then?
“Are there no rules at all? Do we create the conditions [for] a trade war within the UK?
“I don’t want that. So, there have to be rules that people follow but they have to be rules that are agreed and independently policed.
“That’s the mature approach that will keep the UK together.”
He argues for “a way of resolving disputes between the governments via a court” and stresses that the future of the UK is at risk.
He said: “My great fear is that the UK will break up. We’ve seen the threat of that in Scotland. I very much want Scotland to stay with us. Scotland contributes so much to the UK as one of the four nations of the UK. From our perspective, Scotland is a useful counterbalance, clearly, as well within the UK itself. We want Scotland to stay.
“But the ball is very much in the court of Whitehall. It’s within their hands to make the people of Scotland – and the people of Wales feel for that matter – that they are being listened to and respected so that when we leave the EU we have a system in place that recognises the UK is actually make up of four nations with four governments and not one government dictating to the rest.”
Mr Jones does not want the UK Parliament to refuse to give the Scottish Parliament the go-ahead to hold a legally binding independence referendum.
He said: “I think that would play very badly in Scotland and I don’t think it is the role of the UK Parliament for example to say to another parliament you can’t have a referendum.
“That would be the equivalent of the European Parliament telling the UK it cannot have a Brexit referendum. I don’t think that works. Where there is a majority in a devolved parliament for taking a course of action it’s not for the UK Parliament to block that.
“I think that would be counterproductive anyway for those of us who want to work with Scotland’s Parliament within the UK.”
Mr Jones is now among the UK’s foremost advocates for a federal model of Government.
He said: “The future for the UK lies in a more federal partnership. It happens in Canada, it happens in Australia, it doesn’t create instability.
“It is a way of shaping the UK and the nations within it so we can remain together in the future.”
Putting forward a model for how Westminster could be reformed, he said: “One of the suggestions I’ve made is that the upper house, the Lords, should be more reflective of the fact the UK is made up of four nations, something like the Senate US. Each state has an equal number