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Back in May, the shape of British politics shifted dramatically. I\u2019ll forgive you if you were too preoccupied refreshing Andrew Sparrow\u2019s live blog for the latest speculation about Keir Starmer to notice, but since 7 May, centre-left nationalist parties that ultimately aspire to leave the UK have been in government for the first time simultaneously in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.This week sees the initial codification of that shift. In Cardiff yesterday, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth, Scottish National party leader John Swinney and Sinn F\u00e9in vice-president Michelle O\u2019Neill (who shares power with the Democratic Unionist party) affirmed their countries\u2019 right to seek independence from the UK. Along with the leader of the opposition in Ireland, Mary Lou McDonald, they signed a memorandum of understanding that called on Westminster \u201cto prepare, plan and facilitate constitutional change in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland\u201d. And they posed for a fair number of group photos too.With each of the sister parties having a different timeline towards a referendum and its own domestic pressures, it\u2019s tempting to dismiss this as spectacle over substance. However, these first ministers are not shouting into a vacuum. They are part of a cross-national conversation in which devolution is the defining project of the UK\u2019s still newish prime minister.For today\u2019s First Edition, I spoke to our Wales correspondent, Bethan McKernan, in Cardiff about why this agreement is more than a photocall, and checked in with colleagues in Scotland and Ireland for the view from there too. But first, the headlines.Five big stories\n \n Reform UK | Andy Burnham\u2019s government could thwart Reform\u2019s unprecedented \u00a372m donations with retrospective restrictions on political donors that will include tough new residency requirements, ministers have announced.\n \n AI | Donald Trump has dismissed calls to increase controls on AI as a \u201csick conspiracy\u201d, as stocks linked to the technology slumped after appeals from Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX leaders on the weekend for the industry to slow down.\n \n Nato | Nato fighter jets shot down a drone over Lithuania after an alert was issued in the \u200ccapital and surrounding region, while Poland scrambled fighter jets less than a day after retrieving a suspected Russian drone adrift in its waters.\n \n Middle East | Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels have seized two strategic islands in the Red Sea, reinforcing the Iran-backed group\u2019s ability to control a key shipping route, as concerns mount that the world is facing a new oil supply crisis.\n \n Lucy Letby | Two leading experts have quit Lucy Letby\u2019s defence team over concerns about the \u201cscientific credibility\u201d of some of its evidence.\nIn depth: Can devolution hold the UK together?Andy Burnham has made devolution a central part of his political agenda, but the rise of nationalist governments across the UK presents a challenge to his vision. Photograph: Adrian Weston/AlamyListening to the leaders in Cardiff discuss the \u201cgrowing recognition that Westminster is not working\u201d and that \u201cpower genuinely needs to be brought closer to people and communities\u201d, you might have thought Andy Burnham was in the room.The memorandum signed by all four stated that no Westminster government has the right to \u201cblock democracy\u201d by refusing a referendum should the public demand it.At the morning press conference Swinney and O\u2019Neill called for immediate referendums in Scotland and Northern Ireland; ap Iorwerth declined to give a timetable.Later that afternoon, the Scottish and Welsh first ministers signed the Cardiff Agreement, setting out shared priorities like child poverty and economic growth, and which Swinney described as \u201can important moment in the history of devolution\u201d.Events in Cardiff were gifted extra salience by a series of unscripted interventions over the past week. On a visit to Ireland last weekend, Donald Trump told reporters that he would \u201clove\u201d to see a united Ireland and it \u201cmay as well happen now\u201d, prompting swift rebuttal from unionists on the Stormont executive and the UK government, as well as a solid gold response from SDLP leader Claire Hanna, who said: \u201cIt turns out that he isn\u2019t as orange as he looks\u201d.Only weeks prior, Andy Burnham incensed Irish nationalists by declaring a reunification referendum was \u201coff the table\u201d \u2013 forgetting that it\u2019s not his table, because the Good Friday agreement includes a provision for a border poll should it appear that the majority of Northern Irish voters want to leave the UK.In a constitutional one-two, Burnham said last week at PMQs that a second referendum on Scottish independence could be held if a \u201cclear consensus\u201d emerged in favour - but swiftly self-corrected, telling an eager Swinney that such a vote was \u201coff-limits\u201d while he focuses on growing the economy and tackling the cost of living.Nonetheless, says Bethan McKernan, \u201cthere is this sense that since Plaid Cymru won the Senedd elections in Wales in May, this is a new chapter in the Celtic struggle for independence \u2013 or breaking up the UK, depending on which way you look at it.\u201dWhat this all means for WalesIt was an acknowledgment of this momentum, then, that the meeting was held in Cardiff, where Plaid Cymru recently ended a century of Labour control of the Senedd.Latest polling puts support for Wales to leave the UK at 32%, but growing in strength, and ap Iorwerth has been explicit that he won\u2019t push for a referendum this term. Nevertheless, says Bethan, Plaid Cymru are \u201cvery ambitious \u2026 part of their agenda is to put Wales on the world map and mark Wales out as a nation that can stand on its own two feet.\u201dNow in power, the party is focusing on domestic issues, and also bracing for disruption with Reform winning more than a third of seats in the Senedd. It\u2019s a similar scenario at Holyrood, where Reform is joint second largest party alongside Scottish Labour. Both ap Iorwerth and Swinney have been outspoken in their opposition to right wing populism and benefited at the ballot box.There are already clear signs that Plaid Cymru has been learning from the SNP: one of their early priorities has been the Cynnal, a \u00a310 a week child poverty payment, which is closely modelled on the successful Scottish Child Payment.\u2026 and ScotlandThe SNP was returned to Holyrood in May for an unprecedented fifth term, following a lacklustre campaign that mirrored voter disengagement and an unusually high level of undecideds. As its programme for government earlier this month failed to ignite public enthusiasm, this agreement is an opportunity for the Nationalists to \u201cmove the conversation back to their overarching aim - and have another confrontation with London,\u201d Patrick Greenfield tells me. (He\u2019s now reporting from Edinburgh, after a memorable stint on this very newsletter).Patrick reminds me that, while support for independence continues to hover around the 50% mark, enthusiasm among younger cohorts is higher: there\u2019s a sense of Swinney future-proofing support for the party as Yes voters drift away from the SNP.And there\u2019s the convenient diversion of attention from domestic travails, Patrick adds: the lingering scandal after former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell was jailed for embezzling party funds, demands for action as Scotland slumped in international education rankings last week, or looming public sector cuts as his government anticipates a near-\u00a35bn gap in its finances by the end of the decade.Ahead of the Holyrood elections, I can recall Swinney positively beaming at the \u201cseismic\u201d potential of three pro-independence administrations: now it has come to pass, his focus is thought to be on seeking an agreed mechanism for triggering a vote, although that wasn\u2019t discussed yesterday. But there is longstanding disagreement within the SNP about whether its better to build support for independence by doing the day job well rather than get lost in the weeds of referendum process.\u2026 and Northern IrelandSinn F\u00e9in can talk up the significance of the memorandum but its focus is very much on next year\u2019s Stormont assembly elections, Rory Carroll tells me from Dublin. Like the SNP, Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s popularity has slipped in recent years as public services crumble and it fail to deliver on key infrastructure pledges \u2013 but it is likely to win out against a fragmented unionist opposition.With support for Irish unity at 36% in Northern Ireland, Brexit hasn\u2019t moved the dial decisively in favour, Rory says, while the Good Friday agreement is \u201cfamously murky and vague\u201d on a precise mechanism that would trigger a poll. Does a \u201cmajority in favour\u201d refer to opinion polls, elections or some other measure?Stormont has also become \u201cso dysfunctional\u201d that the narrative is growing stronger that Northern Ireland simply doesn\u2019t work, Rory says. \u201cThat surely has to be bad news for unionism. So longer term, all bets are off because the status quo cannot continue indefinitely.\u201dA resolution on devolutionWith devolution his guiding principle, Andy Burnham finds himself in a philosophical quandary. He could ape the more muscular unionism of the Starmer era, with senior Labour figures in Scotland and Wales punting devolution to local authorities as a means to sidestep the parliaments now seen as \u201ccaptured\u201d by nationalists. Or he could follow a more incremental approach, relinquishing further powers within the current constitutional framework. Wales is pressing for the devolution of justice; SNP proposals for a Scottish work visa to combat migrant worker shortages were rejected by Burnham\u2019s government last month.Burnham has said he understands there\u2019s a difference between devolution at regional and national level, but he has yet to set out precisely what he means by that. \u201cBurnham didn\u2019t impress because he didn\u2019t seem to get what it already looked like to people in Scotland and Wales,\u201d says Bethan. \u201cThere\u2019s a whole generation that has grown up with institutions like Holyrood and the Senedd\u201d.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe trouble is that, unlike No 10 in the North, a whole architecture of devolution already exists in the nations, that is essentially competing with Westminster over who gets to control what. After all, an independence referendum could be described as peak devolution.While Burnham still has to get to grips with this internal contradiction, the nationalist leaders have their eye on the arc of history. \u201cI do think that maybe 20 years from now, we all might look back on this meeting in Cardiff and say that was an early step on a very clear path,\u201d says Bethan.What else we\u2019ve been enjoyingJeju SK\u2019s Kim Jae-woo shows the effects of the hot conditions in South Korea. Photograph: Jintak Han/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock\n \n For The Hotspot, our newsletter on climate and sport, John Duerden has a look at how irrepressible summer heat has South Korea considering moving their football season from summer to the winter. It\u2019s a troubling sign of things to come. Charlie Lindlar, newsletters team\n \n Reporter Morgan Ofori has produced a terrific video explaining how Britain\u2019s kings and queens powered the slave trade for the Guardian\u2019s recent Enslaving Nation investigation. It\u2019s worth watching. Hettie\n \n Phone signal is coming to the London Underground, and Lucy Pasha-Robinson wants no part of it, thanks very much. \u201cWhat good comes from permanent online connectedness,\u201d she asks. Charlie\n \n I enjoyed the book publisher Sean DeLone\u2019s recent Substack essay on why the nonfiction market is tanking. He thinks it reflects a wider crisis not just for the men who (mostly) read these books, but for the authority of books as cultural objects. Hettie\n \n When Trump started building his ballroom, he said it would be \u201cmore beautiful\u201d than Versailles. The Guardian\u2019s architecture critic Oliver Wainwright finds that his chandelier-bedecked warehouse is more \u201cThe Blingpire Strikes Back\u201d. Hettie\nSportErling Haaland\u2019s goal was given even though Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez (right) was in an offside position and regarded as likely to have affected the passage of play. Photograph: Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty ImagesFootball | VAR officials who allowed Erling Haaland\u2019s winning goal in the Manchester derby on Sunday have been stood down from their responsibilities because of an \u201cerror of judgment\u201d.Cricket | England\u2019s new Test head coach Stephen Fleming will return to New Zealand to work as a commentator on the Black Caps\u2019 Test and white ball series against India next month despite having formally started work.Formula One | A new track for the Spanish Grand Prix is set to change after driver condemnation of the Madring.The front pages Photograph: The Guardian\u201cMinisters seek law change to make \u00a372m donations to Reform illegal\u201d, is the Guardian\u2019s front page today, while the Times has \u201c\u2018Enhanced\u2019 checks may block \u00a372m to Reform\u201d.The Telegraph leads with \u201cVillages join revolt over migrant camps\u201d, on the same story the Express writes \u201c\u2018This is for our children\u2019\u201d. Metro has \u201cPost Office fraud blitz\u201d, the i Paper says \u201cADHD not being overdiagnosed in the UK, major report set to find\u201d, and the FT splashes \u201cTen-year Treasury yield tops 5% as inflation fears batter bond markets\u201d.The Mail has \u201cHarry and Meghan pull children out of their new school after just two days\u201d and lastly, the Sun on Oasis\u2019 next tour says \u201cDefinitely mayhem\u201d.Today in Focus: The Latest Photograph: The GuardianSydney Sweeney naked sports ad controversy: what\u2019s she playing at?The actor Sydney Sweeney is under fire for \u2018sexualising women\u2019s sports\u2019 in an ad campaign for US sports prediction company Novig, which features a series of images of her in various states of undress as she pretends to play different sports. The ad has been widely criticised by a number of sportswomen, including Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus who described it as \u2018infuriating\u2019 and a \u2018kick in the teeth\u2019 to women who have \u2018spent decades perfecting their craft\u2019. Sweeney has responded by saying the ad was about \u2018embracing a fun idea\u2019. Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian feature writer Elle Hunt.Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings Illustration: Ben Jennings/The GuardianThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world\u2019s not all badA study of galah cockatoos found that flying lifted their mood and boosted optimism. Photograph: Florence Gabrie/GuardianWitness\n \n Do birds actually enjoy flying? Or is it just a thankless journey they take from A to B, the ornithological equivalent of your morning commute? Jorg Massen, a behavioural biologist at Utrecht university, has an answer. In his study of 17 captive cockatoos kept in a bird park in the Netherlands, he found that the birds chose to fly on virtually every occasion. When they flew on consecutive days, they were more likely to display behaviours related to positive emotions, and become more \u201coptimistic\u201d.\nSign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian\u2019s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.\n \n Quick crossword\n \n Cryptic crossword\n \n Wordiply" ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789466714.61558", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-15T10:13:28.366286+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/15/tuesday-briefing-how-to-understand-wales-scotland-and-northern-irelands-joint-call-for-change" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-15T10:13:28.358420+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "Tuesday briefing: How to understand Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland\u2019s joint call for change | Wales | The Guardian", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789466714.61558", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-15T10:13:28.298858+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/15/tuesday-briefing-how-to-understand-wales-scotland-and-northern-irelands-joint-call-for-change" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-09-15T10:13:28.283854+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/15/tuesday-briefing-how-to-understand-wales-scotland-and-northern-irelands-joint-call-for-change.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1789466714.61558", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-15T10:13:23.923104+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "Tuesday briefing: How to understand Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland\u2019s joint call for change | Wales | The Guardian", "warc": null, "wget": "www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/15/tuesday-briefing-how-to-understand-wales-scotland-and-northern-irelands-joint-call-for-change.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1789466714.61558", "newest_archive_date": "2026-09-15T10:13:30.736582+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-09-15T10:13:22.948214+00:00", "path": "/world/2026/sep/15/tuesday-briefing-how-to-understand-wales-scotland-and-northern-irelands-joint-call-for-change", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "04b2fbb0-1895-42dc-a6f3-844d608942c3", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1789466714-import.txt" ], "tags": ",war-wiki,pool,world_news", "tags_str": "war-wiki,pool,world_news", "timestamp": "1789466714.61558", "title": "Tuesday briefing: How to understand Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland\u2019s joint call for change | Wales | The Guardian", "updated": "2026-09-15T10:13:22.948036+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-09-15 10:13", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/15/tuesday-briefing-how-to-understand-wales-scotland-and-northern-irelands-joint-call-for-change" }