A Union of equalls? No Welsh, Scottish or NI veto on Brexit.

Yesterday I was bogging about  Federalism and by coincidence    Members of Parliament were refusing to refused to say that the final Brexit deal should be endorsed by the Assembly and the other devolved legislatures.

Instead, a long-awaited cross-party report states that “no part of the UK has a veto over the outcome of the negotiations”.

Plaid Cymru, the SNP, Northern Ireland’s SDLP and Scotland’s only Liberal Democrat attempted to amend a long-awaited Brexit report so it would state that “the endorsement of the devolved parliaments should be sought for the final deal”.

In July, Labour First Minister Carwyn Jones said:

 “My view is that any future deal the UK agrees should be ratified by all four parliaments within the UK in order to get the greatest buy-in.”

The report from the Exiting the European Union committee argues there should be no return to tariffs for UK businesses, insists the UK Parliament should vote on the final deal and stresses the need for transitional arrangements on trade.

But Jonathan Edwards, the Plaid Cymru member of the committee, attacked Labour MPs’ stance on devolution and warned

“unless Wales begins to flex its muscles we will be even more marginalised in post-Brexit Britain under a right-wing Tory government and a weak and feeble opposition“I am dismayed that my attempts to ensure the report recognised that different UK countries voted in different ways and for the devolved parliaments to have to endorse the final terms of the negotiations were blocked by the Westminster parties. Every single EU member state will have a veto over these negotiations, along with a raft of sub-state regions in Europe as well.“Meanwhile it appears that Labour and Tory MPs believe that the future deal should be determined unilaterally by Westminster – the so called partnership of equals only goes so far.”

..By blocking my amendments to give Wales a voice, the Labour MPs on the Committee have effectively gagged their Welsh Government colleagues... Westminster is intent on turning the UK into a unilateral state

Now Wales voted for Brexit so maybe and argument for a veto is not so strong but  Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to Remain and are being pulled out of the EU against their will. 

Would a Federal UK recognise this and accept that all parts must agree on such a thing as Brexit before it can be carried out.

Indeed if we had a Federal UK would the whole Brexit campaign in Wales have taken a different path and seen the whole EU issue from a Wales viewpoint rather than that of England/UK.

Jonathan Edwards   point   that "Every single EU member state will have a veto over these negotiations, along with a raft of sub-state regions in Europe as well. Can be put in  context when we remember   in ccontrast to last October last year when , Paul Magnette, the Minister-President of the francophone region of Belgium (Wallonia), declined to give the consent of his government to the federal Belgian government to sign the landmark Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada. As a consequence, the Trade Council, meeting on October 18th, was not able to adopt the decision to sign and provisionally apply the agreement, which in turn will prevent the EU from signing the agreement next week at the EU-Canada Summit in Brussels.

Walloonia  can block EU trade agreements .

Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland can't even try and if not stop Brexit  get the best deal fr their people..