Wales’ departing First Minister returned to his old university to discuss his vision for the country post-Brexit.

Carwyn Jones, who graduated from Aberystwyth University in 1988 with a law degree, returned to the Penglais Campus last Thursday to speak about Wales’ future role in the UK.

Entitled ‘Towards a better Union: past, present and post-Brexit prospects for the UK’, the lecture marked the beginning of a year of events to celebrate the centenary of the Department of International Politics at the university.

The First Minister, who will step down as Welsh premier before the end of the year, started his speech by speaking fondly of his time in Aberystwyth, the friends he made whilst there, and his gratitude that “social media videos did not exist in the late 1980s”.

He then discussed the Welsh Government’s steady rise in influence since its conception in 1999 to its present model, moving from a body which was “almost powerless” to a “law-making, tax-varying legislature” today.

Describing himself as a “devolutionist”, he called for a “strong Wales in a strong union” and when questioned later on, suggested he saw “no benefit” in a fully independent Wales.

He called for a rebalance of power within the UK, moving away from a centralised UK Government which weighted towards English interests to a “reformed, federalised union” which would see all UK governments - Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales - share sovereignty and equal weighting.

A union should be based on two pillars of “unity” and “diversity” which would see each country treated as a separate entity as opposed to “tinkering around the edges” of policy made in England, he argued.

There were also calls for policing and justice to be devolved to Wales.

Regarding Brexit, Mr Jones suggested he “had no idea how it would all turn out” and that anyone who said they did know what was going to happen was “not telling the whole truth”.

He also said that Wales and the UK as a whole should not withdraw into itself after Brexit but should look to “sell itself to the world” but conceded that a Brexit deal “done badly” could “sow the seed of the break up of the UK”, with Scotland the first to depart."

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