A YEAR on from the referendum in which the UK voted to leave the European Union, Welsh political leaders have been reflecting on where the country is now.

The vote on June 23 last year saw the Leave campaign come out on top by a margin of 3.8 per cent.

Theresa May triggered Article 50, which begins the two-year process of leaving the union, in March, and negotiations around the terms of the exit began this week.

A year on, pro-EU first minister Carwyn Jones said he believed it was “impossible” to complete negotiations within the two year period, instead calling for a “transitional agreement” to be agreed by April 2019.

“This will be vital in helping reduce the uncertainty around Brexit, which is damaging to the economy,” he said.

Mr Jones and his Labour colleagues have repeatedly called for Wales and other devolved governments to be given a say on the terms of the Brexit.

In January Labour and Plaid Cymru launched a joint white paper setting out their priorities for the Brexit negotiations, which Mr Jones said he believed had influenced the UK Government’s approach.

“The uncertainty and instability the UK Government has allowed to develop over the past year is now being compounded by the ongoing chaos around the prime minister,” he said.

“With no mandate, no clear negotiating strategy and a cabinet riven with disagreement over how we should approach Brexit, the UK government must prioritise transitional arrangements to ensure that the Britain’s interests are best served.”

Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies, who campaigned for a Leave vote last year, said, with the Brexit process now in process, a new way of the devolved administrations working together should be developed.

“At the heart of the Leave campaign was a sense that we were speaking for the millions of people in this country who felt ignored by a distant and unelected elite,” he said.

“With the likely prospect of new UK-wide frameworks for farming, regeneration and research, it is vital that we have the structures in place to ensure that people in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have a bigger stake in the process.

“That means a better voice for the devolved nations.”

Meanwhile the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee has said the process must not result in a loss of powers for Wales or any other devolved nation.

The committee’s chairman and Ogmore AM Huw Irranca-Davies said: “Based on the UK Government’s approach in relation to the Wales Act 2017, we are concerned that the National Assembly could lose powers to central control as a result of exiting the EU, particularly in policy areas that have been heavily reliant on EU law.

“Overall, the key issue that needs to be addressed by the UK Government is the creation of a legal and constitutional context that serves the devolved nations and UK following exit from the EU. That context needs to be developed in partnership with devolved nations rather than being imposed upon them.”