Devolution: Majority of Wales are against cutting Welsh Government powers for Brexit reasons

A majority of people who voted to leave the European Union are also against reducing the powers of the Welsh Parliament, according to a survey by Cardiff University experts.

The findings come in data from the Welsh Election Study highlighted by researchers at the Wales Governance Centre. They’ve been published in a new report for the organisation “UK in a Changing Europe.”

According to the figures, 52% of people who voted ‘Leave’ in the 2016 referendum were also opposed to the idea that the UK Government should remove powers from the Senedd in order to make the most of Brexit.

Less surprisingly, 88% of ‘Remain’ voters also took that position as did 71% of the wider electorate.

They’d been asked if they agreed or disagreed with the suggestion that “the UK Government is right to remove powers from the Senedd if it is necessary to maximise Brexit benefits."

The data has been published by Richard Wyn Jones, Jac Larner and Daniel Wincott from the Wales Governance Centre who say it shows that the ‘Leave’ vote was “not fundamentally linked to scepticism over devolution.”

They said, “Data collected by the 2021 Welsh Election Study shows that a substantial majority of the Welsh electorate reject any undermining of devolved powers in the name of Brexit. This view is shared even by a majority of Welsh Leave voters.”

Some opponents of the Conservative UK Government have criticised what they see as its increasingly assertive approach to devolution, using levers that have reverted to the UK to act and fund projects in areas previously considered to be the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

However, the UK Government has repeatedly dismissed accusations of a “power grab” saying that it has not removed any powers from the Welsh Government while at the same time it has enhanced decision-making by local authorities. 

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