UK devolution crisis
The first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - the SNP's John Swinney, Plaid Cymru's Rhun ap Iorwerth and Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill - signed a memorandum of understanding in Cardiff affirming their nations' right to 'self-determination' from the United Kingdom, in a document declaring that 'Westminster's time is coming to an end' and that their future lies with the European Union. It marks the first time leaders of all three devolved nations have simultaneously held pro-independence or, in Northern Ireland's case, pro-unification positions, and the first joint push by the three to drive the UK's constitutional question themselves rather than respond to one set by London. The three attended as party leaders rather than in their governmental capacities, a choice that let O'Neill sidestep her power-sharing arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party; DUP deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly accused her of 'weaponizing' the first-minister role, to which O'Neill replied she was simply first minister and this was 'historic change happening all around us.'
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