Brexit Party supports abolishing the Senedd

MARK Reckless, leader of the Brexit Party and member for South Wales East in the Welsh Parliament, has confirmed that the party will campaign in the 2021 Senedd election to abolish the institution and alter the current devolution arrangements.

Mr. Reckless said “devolution has gone so much further” than some people thought it would and is proposing a directly-elected first minister.

On the BBC Wales Politics programme Mark Reckless questioned the value of having the Senedd and its members in addition to MPs in Westminster, adding

“A lot of people who haven’t engaged with devolved politics now see the powers this place has, and many of those people would prefer to be governed on a UK basis rather than having things done differently in Wales just for the sake of it, as so often has been the case under Mark Drakeford”

On the same programme Adam Price, the leader of Plaid Cymru said that the Brexit Party’s support for scrapping the devolution system is an attempt to turn Wales “into western England”.

“What is the message of the Brexit Party in this regard? It’s not just abolishing our democracy, it’s abolishing Wales,”

“Is anyone seriously, when we look to the last three months, at the more careful, reasonable, thoughtful approach that the Welsh Government has shown in recent months compared to the reckless policy, the dysfunctional policy of bumbling and blustering its way through the crisis that we’ve seen from Boris Johnson, do we really want to take the powers that we have to protect our people and give them to Number 10 Downing Street in these circumstances? Absolutely not.”

The latest polling in Wales suggests that around 22% of people support abolishing the Welsh Parliament. However, 24% are in support of leaving matters as they are, 20% would wish the Senedd had more powers, and 16% support independence.