‘How Burnham’s devolution revolution can deliver for North Wales’

The North Star leads the way; it certainly has over the past two weeks and looks like it will soon become the epicentre of the future of politics and of this Labour Government. 

Like so many in the Labour movement, my attention was directed towards Manchester on Monday to listen to what I hoped would be the beginnings of not just a new chapter for devolution, but a fundamental rewiring of it. I was not disappointed. 

Andy Burnham spoke clearly about the need to radically move to a system that not only values but also trusts every postcode across the country to act in ways that work for them, and not for the bubble that sits in SW1. 

Particularly significant was his recognition that devolution should never be treated as a job already finished. In Wales, I believe we’ve become victims of exactly that assumption: that 25 years of devolution have automatically meant that people feel connected to it and satisfied by it. 

READ MORE: ‘Building trust’

The reality is that for many in North Wales, Cardiff Bay feels as distant and irrelevant to them as Westminster does. What was too often dismissed by our party in Wales became reality less than two months ago when Welsh Labour held onto just one seat across the whole of North Wales in the recent Senedd election. 

Whilst many in Welsh Labour anticipated a set of challenging results in the 2026 Senedd elections, the scale of the defeat was still surprising to some despite the clear warning signals. 

Many residents in my constituency of Wrexham will interact far more often with the northwest of England than they will with South Wales, whether that be for work, business, healthcare, education, culture and much more. 

Someone from Wrexham is far more likely to cross the border into Chester for a hospital appointment, into Cheshire for work, or send a child to college with links into Greater Manchester, than they are to look south to Cardiff for any of it. 

The deep interrelationship between so much of North Wales and the cities of Manchester, Liverpool and surrounding areas has successfully developed over many decades. Yet this success has always felt restrained by the realities of different governance structures on either side of the border since the beginning of devolution. 

A Burnham government has the opportunity to release those shackles, to unleash the full potential of what that cross-border relationship can deliver for people and the way in which they experience it. 

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That means giving local leaders in North Wales the ability to work as equal partners with Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City Region and other neighbouring authorities, on the issues that people actually care about: improving transport links, 

attracting investment, creating high-skilled jobs, coordinating further education and skills provision, and ensuring healthcare and public services reflect how people actually live their lives. 

The success of the Mayoral authorities in England lies not in simply having more powers for the sake of it, but in using those powers as levers of success to empower the people and economy around them. 

For Welsh Labour, such a transfer of power would present a key opportunity in rebuilding our electoral relationship with the people we seek to serve in communities across Wales. 

The new minority Plaid Cymru government has made it clear that, even in light of Burnham’s speech on Monday, they will continue pushing for nothing less than evermore centralised powers in Cardiff, powers that so many in Wales feel detached from. Something we have already seen in practice with the diversion of £300million of ALN Barnett consequentials from Welsh Local Authorities instead being repurposed to rescue Plaid’s unfunded flagship manifesto childcare commitment. 

While the minority Plaid Cymru government continues to push this agenda, the UK Labour government should establish a new relationship around devolution, one that is local and feels fresh rather than old and tired. A vision that embraces a sense of energy and dynamism. One that reflects, understands, and empowers our communities rather than talking down to them. 

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No one is pretending that a magic wand awaits us in just over three weeks’ time, but I believe that Andy Burnham’s vision is one that seeks not to divide but to bring us together; one that offers hope in a way that is visible and practical; and one that finally brings to an end the outdated and dysfunctional way in which our country has functioned for far too long, and one that will take us forward to the better future that we all demand. 

Now is the time to rewire Britain and rewire Wales. Let’s get behind Andy and make it happen.

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