ALL three devolved parliaments in the UK have rejected the UK Government’s EU Withdrawal Bill.
The Welsh Assembly last night joined Holyrood and Stormont in knocking back the proposal.
Nicola Sturgeon warned that if Boris Johnson’s Government ignored the decisions from the three parliaments, he would simply be highlighting “how broken the Westminster system is”.
A total of 35 Welsh Assembly members, from Labour and Plaid Cymru, voted to reject the Withdrawal Agreement Bill legislation, while 15 backed it.
Responding on Twitter, Nicola Sturgeon wrote: “All three devolved parliaments have now rejected the EU Withdrawal Bill – it is unprecedented and momentous.
“For the UK to ignore that reality will simply demonstrate how broken the Westminster system is.”
READ MORE: Northern Ireland Assembly votes to withhold Brexit bill consent
The Northern Irish Assembly rejected the UK Government’s EU withdrawal plan on Monday.
The position was agreed without dissent following a near three-hour debate at Stormont.
It was one of the first substantive acts of business since the assembly was restored earlier this month following the power-sharing deal.
Though none of the devolved institutions have granted permission for Westminster to go ahead with the Brexit legislation, they cannot prevent Brexit from becoming law.
Under the devolution agreement, legislative consent is required for issues affecting devolved policy areas.
However, the UK Government is now likely to impose the legislation against the will of the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish administrations.
The only other example of this was the original Brexit law, the EU Withdrawal Act, which Westminster imposed against Holyrood’s wishes in 2018.
LISTEN: BBC Scotland host asks 'what about England' in devolution row
Opening the debate in the Welsh Assembly yesterday, First Minister Mark Drakeford said: “Brexit is going to happen. That is a fact.”
But he warned how Brexit happens is “anything but settled”.
“A mandate for Brexit is not a mandate for bad legislation,” he said, claiming the protocol on Northern Ireland will cause “friction” at Welsh ports.
He told members the withdrawal bill would allow the amendment of the Government of Wales Act which governs how the assembly works, accusing the UK Government of a “unilateral rewriting of the devolution settlement”.
Ahead of the vote, UK Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay called on the Welsh government to back the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.
“I hope that you will revise your recommendation and support this bill,” he wrote in a letter to Welsh Brexit minister Jeremy Miles.
READ MORE: Scotland must not pay price for 'reckless Tory Brexit deal'
“It allows us to respect the result of the referendum, in which the people of Wales voted to leave the EU, to move on to focus on other priorities and at the same time bring the country together.”
Plaid Cymru’s Delyth Jewell said her party could not support the deal because “it threatens Welsh powers, removes parliamentary oversight of the negotiations, takes away the rights of child refugees, workers and EU citizens and unnecessarily rules out an extension to the negotiating process, making a bad deal or even no deal at all the most likely outcome”.
But the Welsh Conservatives and Brexit Party backed the legislation.
The Brexit Party’s Mark Reckless accused Welsh Labour of a “futile anti-Brexit stunt”.
READ MORE: Brexit Party MEP complains about UK losing representation in Europe
“They have learned nothing from the Brexit Party’s victory in the European elections, nor the Conservative victory in December,” he said.
Welsh Conservative assembly member Andrew R T Davies said following the vote: “The people of Wales continue to get two fingers from the Labour-Plaid-Lib leftie establishment in Cardiff Bay.”
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