Wales’s First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth told an independence rally in Aberystwyth on September 26 that Wales is “on a journey, and there’s no turning back,” a day after Prime Minister Andy Burnham ruled out handing the Welsh Government the power to call an independence referendum. It was the first time a Welsh first minister had attended a march organized by the campaign group YesCymru, which estimated the crowd at 8,000 to 9,000 people, BBC News reported.
Ap Iorwerth answered Burnham from the stage in Castle Gardens. “The right to self-determination is not a right that the UK government is willing to acknowledge,” he said. He told the crowd that the next step for Wales had to be “equality with Scotland, as a minimum.”
Burnham had told BBC Wales on September 25 that the other nations of the United Kingdom do not hold referendum powers and that he did not “think we can create a different arrangement for Wales.” His answer came three days after ap Iorwerth’s government formally asked for those powers in its four-year plan. Ap Iorwerth has ruled out holding a referendum before the next Senedd election in May 2030.
The same week, the Senedd split evenly on the question from the other side. A Reform motion declaring that Wales should remain part of the United Kingdom drew 45 votes for and 45 against, and Presiding Officer Huw Irranca-Davies cast the deciding vote against it in line with parliamentary convention, according to the BBC.
The march was the first since Plaid Cymru took office after the Senedd elections in May. Reform MS Joe Martin called the first minister’s attendance disappointing and said Plaid had campaigned on a platform that kept independence off the table for this term. “If there was a clear and overwhelming majority of people in Wales who wanted independence then obviously that would change things, but there isn’t,” Martin told BBC Politics Wales. Welsh Labour declined to comment.
Westminster’s position is that the question is not Wales’s alone to decide. On Saturday the first minister called it a right and said London is not willing to acknowledge it.
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