Drakeford draws up his battle lines on the Union

A little over two years ago, a relatively unknown First Minister of Wales unveiled his blueprint to repair intergovernmental relations across the UK. As he delivered the annual Keir Hardie lecture at Merthyr Tydfil College, Mark Drakeford said that he had been forced to ‘take up the baton where the UK government itself has dropped it.’ A reform of the constitution was deemed ‘both urgent and vital’ if the Union was to survive post-Brexit, while a ‘fairer, more equitable and more sustainable settlement’ should follow.

Such language peppered the most provocative constitutional speech by a modern Welsh politician. The trouble was that hardly anybody listened. Downing Street certainly had little interest in hearing from a First Minister who had been in the role for less than a year and had no personal electoral mandate to make such protestations. The Welsh government’s Reforming our Union document, which inspired the Merthyr speech and included calls for a ‘partnership of equals’ between the four nations, was dismissed as academic.