Thread by @WelshLabour

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🌹Welsh Labour Leader and First Minister @MarkDrakeford is delivering the Annual Keir Hardie Lecture, setting out a vision for Wales, in a reformed UK, at the heart of the EU.

#StandingUpForWales
#ReformingOurUnion

💬“The very future of the United Kingdom as a voluntary association of nations working together in our common interests is now in question as a result of Brexit.”

#StandingUpForWales
#ReformingOurUnion

💬“I will make the case for an entrenched and extended devolution settlement, in which a self-determined and successful Wales chooses to remain in a decentralised and successful UK, itself a positive and leading member in a reformed and successful EU.”

#ReformingOurUnion

💬“Unity & solidarity are the means by which the interests of the many can be advanced.
 
Nationalism takes us in exactly the opposite direction: pitting working people against each other, based on the accident of geography, rather than drawing them together in a common cause.”

💬”The struggle is not between working people in Merthyr and Middlesbrough, but between the powerful and privileged and those who are held back in a society marred by deep and deliberate inequality.”

💬”The reforms I advocate are based on the twin aspects Hardie’s legacy: his untiring advocacy of the benefits of unionism, and his clear sense that unity between people in pursuit of common interests was strengthened, not undermined, by powerful local self determination.”

💬”Twenty years into devolution, I don’t believe that this model of Parliamentary Sovereignty - in which Westminster remains paramount and all other democratic forums are subsidiary to it - can provide a basis for the future.”
#StandingUpForWales #ReformingOurUnion

💬”Reform of the UK constitution is both urgent and vital. This plan sets out the minimum steps we believe are need to strengthen our Union for the future.”
 
📖 #ReformingOurUnion: gov.wales/sites/default/…

💬“Our emancipation is not one based on framing other nations as the enemy: whether that be by Boris Johnson’s attempt to demonise the European Union, or Plaid Cymru’s attempt to blame the English for all our present discontents.”

💬”The redistribution of power is at the heart of devolution. We can best exercise that power in the pursuit of social justice through a partnership with a Labour Government at Westminster determined to be a redistributive engine in economic, social and environmental justice.”

🤝 Four governments based on a partnership of equals, in a spirit of mutual respect.

🌏 Involvement of devolved administrations in forming the UK Government’s policy on international relations and trade.

gov.wales/sites/default/… #ReformingOurUnion #StandingUpForWales

💷 Fair funding across the four UK nations.

🏛 Root and branch reform of the existing inter-governmental operations to reflect reality of devolution in a changing world.

gov.wales/sites/default/… #ReformingOurUnion #StandingUpForWales

⚖️ Reform the House of Lords and Supreme Court to reflect the multi-national character of the Union.

📝 A Constitutional Convention, as first called for by @AMCarwyn, to consider future constitutional developments.

gov.wales/sites/default/… #ReformingOurUnion #StandingUpForWales