Prime minister Andy Burnham has told Welsh Labour members that the party may have drifted from the ideas behind devolution before its historic defeat at May’s Senedd election.
According to BBC Wales, the UK Labour leader made the remarks on Saturday morning at the first Welsh Labour conference since the vote. The election ended 27 years of Labour running the Welsh government and saw power pass to pro-independence Plaid Cymru.
Where it went wrong
Mr Burnham suggested the last Labour government had not done enough to hand powers down to communities. He told the conference:
“Somewhere along the way perhaps we lost sight of some of the principles that drove devolution in the first place.
“We probably stopped listening as much as we should have, and actually stopped driving power down into every Welsh postcode which is what the vision to me really should always have been about – about people and places.”
He also admitted it was “hard” to accept that Labour was no longer in charge in Wales.
A call for unity
BBC Wales described the address as subdued. In it, Mr Burnham said he wanted to see “one Labour team”, with “everyone” “signed up and on the same page.”
He told members the party would accept its defeat and “come back stronger” with a “vision for a stronger Wales in a fairer United Kingdom.”
Power for councils
Since becoming prime minister, Mr Burnham has been pressing the Welsh government to devolve more powers to local councils.
What comes next
His speech came ahead of the publication of a review into what went wrong for Labour at the election.
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