A NO-DEAL Brexit "would threaten the very future of the United Kingdom", a Welsh Government minister has said.

Brexit minister Jeremy Miles made the comments at an event on Monday marking two years since the Welsh Government published a report into how leaving the European Union could affect devolution and relations between the governments of the UK.

In the report the Welsh Government said new agreements should be developed on how devolved powers currently held by Europe will operate post-Brexit, and a new UK Council of Ministers should be created to facilitate this.

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But, speaking at the event on Monday morning, Mr Miles said "not enough" had changed since the Brexit and Devolution report was published in June 2017.

“It is my view that a disorderly, chaotic exit from the EU would threaten the very future of the United Kingdom, and no amount of reform of the current intergovernmental relations will be capable of mitigating that risk," he said.

“In future, the devolved administrations must be fully involved in negotiating our international relationships. We need to see concrete progress and an undertaking that compromise will be needed on all sides. In that way, we have a chance of delivering change.

“There have been successes, and there are encouraging signs across Whitehall that the penny is beginning to drop. Welsh Government will continue to lead the debate, and to make the case for a set of intergovernmental structures which meet the challenges we face now, and will face in the coming years."

South Wales Argus:

(Jeremy Miles)

He added: “When we published Brexit and Devolution, we didn’t claim to have all the answers.

"We said: here are the issues we face as a result of Brexit - the reasons why the existing intergovernmental machinery simply won’t cut it anymore. And here are our proposals for change.

“Two years on, what’s changed? The short answer is not enough.

“Today, people under 40 can barely imagine a world without devolution, but in many ways the UK Government’s approach still reflects a very dated ‘grace and favour’ attitude - if we behave ourselves, the UK Government will, out of the goodness of its hearts, allow us some limited powers of self-government.

“The existing, inadequate intergovernmental arrangements and structures remain, without even an agreed plan for how they might be reformed. In that sense, nothing has changed.

"No progress has been made in respect of our call for a Council of Ministers, or for a better system for dispute resolution. And that is deeply disappointing.

“If we are to see real progress, we need a change in attitude towards devolution, based on mutual respect and parity of esteem and participation between the various governments.”

Although the Welsh Government's position on Brexit had been that it would campaign to remain if a second referendum was held, it had not formally backed a so-called 'people's vote'. But, following last month's European Parliament Election, in which the Brexit Party made significant gains, first minister Mark Drakeford announced the Welsh Government would not actively campaign for a second referendum, with the option to remain on the ballot paper.