Only a full devolution reset can stop the UK splintering apart

Mark Drakeford is the only leader in the union defying the forces that threaten to undo it. He should be listened to

Mark Drakeford is right. The threat to the UK’s union must be treated as a major question of our time. Wales’s Labour first minister says the union has failed to keep pace with devolution and is fracturing before his eyes. From Cardiff, Drakeford sees little sign that the UK government is remotely bothered.

Boris Johnson’s “aggressive unilateralism” was making things worse, the first minister said on Monday, the taste for “slogans, buildings and flag-flying” boosting separatism. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Differences should be a source of strength, and could be, if Britain had the devolutionary reset that it needs. Drakeford makes this case from a position of renewed strength, having seen off both the anti-devolutionists and the separatists in May’s assembly elections.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...